
Glass _^__ . 

Book__:lV 



fib 

FIFTH PRINTING 



A clear statement of the philosophy and 
practice of Syndicalism, its history and its 
status all over the world. 



A 07 '-- 

THE n 

NEW UNIONISM 



ANDRE TRIDON 



PRICE, 25 CENTS NET 
Prices for quantities on application 



B. W. HUEBSCH 

PUBLISHER 
NEW YORK 



This book may be obtained in attractive 
cloth covers $1.00 net. 



M **u* 



n * .» 



The 
NEW UNIONISM 

BY 

andre" tridon 




F 0RUM HALL 

I2 ^9 NO, CLAflJ ST. 
CHICAGO 



NEW YORK 

■B. W. HUEBSCH 

1917 






Copyright, 1913, by 
B. W. HUEBSCH 



First printing, June, 1913 
Second printing, February, 1914 
Third printing, September, 1915 
Fourth printing, March, 191 7 
Fifth printing, November, 19 17 



Transfer 
fttaglneers School Uby« 
June 28, 1931 



PRINTED IN U. S. A, 



PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION 

This preface contains a record of the noteworthy 
events which have occurred since the publication of 
this book in June, 1913. The text remains iden- 
tical with that of the first edition. 

The first International Syndicalist Congress was 
held in London from September 27 until October 2, 
1913. Delegates had been sent by Syndicalist organ- 
izations in Germany, Holland, France, Belgium, 
Spain, Italy, Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Norway and 
Sweden. 

English Syndicalists have been extremely active 
and committees are at work in almost every industry 
amalgamating the various craft unions into industrial 
unions. The protracted strike of the transport 
workers in Dublin conducted by Jim Larkin was 
finally lost when the English labor leaders denied Lar- 
kin's request to call a sympathetic strike. The men 
went back to work but refused to sign agreements. 

Tom Mann, when in this country, revealed to me 
the fact until then kept secret that the Open Let- 
ter to British Soldiers for which he served a term in 
jail had been written by Fred Bowers of Liverpool. 

A new Syndicalist paper, Solidarity, is being pub- 
lished in London by Jack I. Wills. It is edited by 
Gaylord Wilshire and Norman Young. 

The French C. G. T. scored a victory when eighteen 
of its leaders arrested early last summer for anti- 
militarist propaganda and kept 145 days without 
trial were found not guilty by the Chumbre Correc- 
tionelle. The government was forced to abandon 



PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION 

plans for increased armaments because of opposition 
in labor circles to the flotation of a war loan. 

The Italian Syndicalists, at their Congress held in 
Milan in December, 1913, reaffirmed their decision 
to remain independent of the conservative C. G. L. 

Russian workers resorted to " Italian " direct ac- 
tion methods and sabotage in several strikes. 

Intellectuals in many countries are swelling the 
ranks of Syndicalist organizations. A movement is 
on foot among Scottish teachers to organize an indus- 
trial union of teachers. I. W. W. charters have been 
issued to actors' organizations in several American 
cities. 

I acknowledge my indebtedness to Messrs. Guy 
Bowman, London ; Christian Cornelissen, Paris ; 
Justus Ebert, Brooklyn; Joseph Ettor, New York; 
Arturo Giovanni tti, New York; Sydney Greenbie, 
New York; William D. Haywood, Denver; Prof. 
Felix Le Dantec, University of Paris; Tom Mann, 
Manchester; Emile Pataud, Paris; Emile Pouget, 
Paris ; Odon Por, Milan ; George G. Reeve, Sydney, 
Australia; Vincent St. John, Chicago; Dr. E. S. 
Slosson, New York; Walker C. Smith, Spokane; 
William E. Trautman, Pittsburgh; B. H. Williams, 
New Castle ; Jack I. Wills, London, and Gaylord Wil- 
shire, London, who either passed upon such of these 
chapters as appeared in the New York Sun, the New 
York Tribune, The Independent, The International, 
The Industrial Worker, Solidarity, etc. or revised the 
proof sheets or gave me the benefit of their own ob- 
servations in this and other countries. 

Andre TiaDOisr. 

New York, February 1 2 1914 t 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

Thb New Unionism: A Definition. — What it is called 
in the various countries. — New Unionism versus 
Anarchism; Edouard Berth, F. Van Eeden, W. T. 
Trautman on anarchism. — New Unionism versus 
trade unionism; B. H. Walker on craft organiza- 
tion ; W. D. Haywood on the A. F. of L. ; H. Lagar- 
delle's views; rivalry among English craft unions; 
E. V. Debs on " union scabs " ; the Owens machine 
versus the glassblowers union. — The unskilled la- 
borer; hobo labor and the ballot. — Socialism hailed 
by the capitalist press as a conservative force. — 
Definition of the New Unionism. — Is industrialism 
different from syndicalism? — The great change. . . 1 

CHAPTER II 

Direct Action: I. The Strike. — Pouget and Vandervelde 
on Direct Action. — The anti-injunction bill. — The 
Dreyfus case and the Lawrence case. — What a strike 
means to the New Unionist. — Folded arms strikes. — 
Sympathy strikes. — Irritation strikes. — Bumper 
strikes. — How long should a strike last? — Yvetot 
on strike funds. — When is a strike successful? 
The general strike. — Anti-militarism. — The Mal- 
thusian strike 24 

CHAPTER III 

Direct Action : II, Sabotage. — The meaning of the word. 
— Balzac's account of the Lyons weaver strike. — The 
French telegraphists' " mastic." — The Glasgow dockers 
and Ca Canny methods. — The Toulouse congress and 
Pouget's motion. — The congress appoints a committee 
on sabotage. — Active sabotage ; described in the Bulle- 
tin of the Montpellier Labor Exchange; the French 
barbers' " badigeonnage " ; Haywood's observations ; 
La Voix du Peuple on crippling the machinery before 
a walk out. — Sabotage of telegraph lines.* — Open 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

mouth sabotage; cooks, subway employees, grocery, 
drugstore and bank clerks muckrake their employers. 

— Obstructionism; its origin; as applied by Italian 
railroaders. — The ethics of sabotage 37 

CHAPTER IV 

The New Unionism and the Intellectuals. — Intellect- 
uals managing the world's affairs. — An antiparlia- 
mentary deputy. — Radical lawyers and their fees. — 
The French International tried to exclude intellec- 
tuals. — Sorel, Edouard Berth and Leone on intellec- 
tuals.— The art of to-morrow. — Pouget and Pataud 
on art in the syndicalist commonwealth. — Radical 
art and its vagaries 56 

CHAPTER V 

The New Unionism in France: Revolutionary Syndi* 
CALISM. — Syndicalist tendencies and the French In- 
ternational.— The Commune. — The law of 1884. — 
The first Labor Exchange. — Aristide Briand, a parti- 
san of the general strike. — Fernand Pelloutier and 
the anarchists. — The first C. G. T. — The second C. G. 
T. — Parties within the C. G. T. — Its organization; 
the two Federations and their work; the National 
Syndicates; growing spirit of industrialism. — The re- 
sources of the C. G. T. — La Voix du Peuple. — The 
writers' syndicate. — Government employees join the 
C. G. T. — The teachers' fight for the right to affiliate 
with the C. G. T.— The Soldier's Penny fund.— The 
C. G. T. and the socialist party. — The leaders: Pou- 
get, Griffuehles, Yvetot, Luquet, Pataud, etc. — The 
management of the syndicalist commonwealth of the 
future 67 

CHAPTER VI 

The New Unionism in the United States : Industrial- 
ism. — Pioneer industrialist organizations; the Na- 
tional Labor Union; the Knights of Labor; The In- 
ternational Working People's Association; The In- 
ternational Workingmen's Association; the American 
Railway Union; the Western Federation of Miners. 

— The Chicago conference. — The first I. W. W. pre- 
amble. Internal dissensions. — The second preamble. 
— The I. W. W., its history and methods. — The 
strikes of the I. W. W. — Its leaders St. John, Hay* 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 
wood, Ettor, Giovannitti, Trautman, Elizabeth Flynn. 
— The industrialist idea and the A. F. of L. — The 
Chicago newspaper strike and its consequences. — 
The new policy of the A. F. of L.; organizing 
unskilled workers. — The New Unionism and the 
I. W. W.; The Haywood case 92 

CHAPTER VII 

The New Unionism in England: Syndicalism. The 
chartist movement. — The labor unrest of 1910. — The 
Ben Tillett resolution. — Tom Mann's activity; his 
pamphlets; Tom Mann on parliamentary action. — 
The " open letter to British Soldiers." — The call for 
amalgamation. — Railroaders now united in one big 
union with 200,000 members. — The socialist party dis- 
approves of syndicalism 124 

CHAPTER VIII 

The New Unionism in Italy: Syndicalism. The revolt 
of the Sicilian peasants. — The year 1900. — The Cen- 
tral Secretariat of Resistance. — The organization of 
the C. G. L. — The conservative policy of the C. G. L. ; 
its attitude to strikers. — The cooperatives and their 
plight; the glassblowers and their financial difficul- 
ties. — The Italian Syndical Union. — Labriola and 
Leone on Italian syndicalism 148 

CHAPTER IX 

The New Unionism in Germany: Localism. The 
trade union congress of 1900. — The independent con- 
gress of 1907. — The Freie Vereinigung; its press. — 
The aims of the localists. — Localists expelled from 
the socialist party 160 

CHAPTER X 

The New Unionism in Australia, New Zealand and 
South Africa. — Tom Mann and Dora Montefiore on 
"labor governments." — Workers jailed for striking 
and for refusing to serve under the flag. — The growth 
of the industrialist idea 165 

CHAPTER XI 

The New Unionism in other Countries. — Argentina; 
Austria; Chile; British Columbia; Holland; Japan; 
Scandinavia; Switzerland. . . . 173 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER XII 

International Relations. — The C. G. T. and the Inter- 
national Secretariate. — Le Bulletin International, . 181 

CHAPTER XIII 

The Influence of the New Unionism on Modern 
Thought. — Cornelissen's warning. — The Bergson case. 
— Paulhan, Chide, Le Roy. — Is Sorel a syndicalist? 
Sorel's lack of understanding of the C. G. T.'s spirit; 
Sorel's conservatism ; his theory of myths ; his " apol- 
ogy for violence " ; his puritanical views. — Felix Le 
Dan tec and his theory of rights; cynicism and revo- 
lution; parliaments and majorities; the unreasonable 
compensation of merit. .«••«•••• 186 



THE NEW UNIONISM 

CHAPTER I 

THE NEW UNIONISM: A DEFINITION 

New Unionism. At the present day the New Un- 
ionism, that is labor's endeavor to free itself from the 
existing forms of organization and improve upon 
them, goes by a different name in almost every 
country. In the United States, Industrialism, in 
England, Syndicalism, in France, Revolutionary 
Syndicalism, in Germany, Localism or Anarcho- 
Socialism. Robert Rives La Monte even attempted 
to call it New Socialism. 

Before attempting to tell what it is, we con- 
sider it imperative to tell what it is not. It 
is neither anarchism, nor trade unionism, nor reform- 
ism, nor political socialism, nor Marxian socialism. 

Radical papers and pamphlets are fond of display- 
ing the Marxian motto : " The emancipation of the 
workers must be accomplished by the workingmen 
themselves." Thus far, however, the worker has 
always been prone to believe that someone else was 
going to emancipate him and could emancipate him 
quicker than he himself could. Certain theorists 
hold out a millennium to the workers on one appar- 
ently simple and fair condition : that the workers give 
the theorists a formal warrant to go forth and con- 
quer it in their behalf. 

1 



2 THE NEW UNIONISM 

Other theorists also hold out a millennium to the 
workers but without pointing out any practical means 
to bring about the great change : this is why anarch- 
ism has never appealed to more than a handful of in- 
tellectuals with bucolic tastes. It has no modern 
solution to offer for any of to-day's problems. The 
criticisms formulated by anarchists against modern 
society are generally sound but purely negative. 
Kousseau, Proudhon, Tolstoy, Stirner have no mes- 
sage for the practical man who knows that the com- 
plexity of our civilization cannot be abolished by a 
mere act of negation. 

In Les Nouveaux Aspects dw Socialisme Edouard 
Berth, a French syndicalist writer expressed himself 
as follows on the differences between the syndicalist 
and the anarchist viewpoint : 

Syndicalists are grateful to the capitalist system not only 
for the material wealth it has created but also and particu- 
larly for the moral and intellectual transformation it has 
brought about within the masses of the workers, who, owing 
to capitalism's iron discipline, have been lifted out of their 
original sluggishness and anarchistic individualism, and 
rendered capable of more and more perfect collective labor. 

Syndicalists admit that civilization began and had to be- 
gin with some form of coercion and furthermore, that such 
coercion was beneficial and creative, and that if we can look 
forward to a system of liberty without the tyranny of the 
employers or the tyranny of the state it is owing to the 
capitalist system of coercion which has disciplined man- 
kind and made it gradually capable of rising to labor freely 
and voluntarily performed. Against that system of coer- 
cion, anarchism has constantly protested; it curses civiliza- 
tion which demands so much effort and gives us so little 
happiness in return; we might say that this protest of the 



A DEFINITION 3 

anarchist merely voices the revolt of the lazy individual, 
of the primitive savage, of the mature man against a sys- 
tem which tried to break him to the discipline of labor. . . . 
Such a protest is purely negative, nay, reactionary. . . . 
For society is a coordination of efforts, not a juxtaposition 
of egos seeking mere enjoyment. . . . Anarchism is merely 
exaggerated bourgeoisism. An anarchist is often a deca- 
dent bourgeois; his eagerness for a return to nature is very 
similar to the tired bourgeois' craving for a fresh air cure 
in the country. 

A recent convert who has come to syndicalism 
after much social experimenting along the reformist 
and cooperative lines, Frederick Van Eeden, writes in 
the (London) Syndicalist: 

Anarchism neglected the immense importance of organ- 
ization, and supposed the workers to be capable without 
leadership, without discipline, of achieving the tremendous 
task of creating a well-organized commonwealth. This was 
indeed Utopia in its worst sense. It jumped long periods of 
slow and difficult education. It did not teach the workers 
the terrible strength of their opponents, the exploiters. It 
did not realize how the intricate structure of modern society 
demanded great organizing capacities, scientific knowledge, 
economical insight, first-rate leadership, and strict discipline, 
in order to replace the old order by a new and a better one. 
So anarchism was soon paralyzed and left behind in the 
struggle. It could strike, but not .conquer. It proved to 
be destructive, not constructive. It withered for want of 
successful deeds. 

William E. Trautmtan, a practical industrialist 
organizer, is emphatic in his defense of modern civil- 
ization, much maligned by anarchists ; he writes : 

No destruction, no waste, no return to barbarism. A 
higher plane of civilization is to be achieved. When the 



4 THE NEW UNIONISM 

workers understand how the industrial system of to-day has 
developed, how one industrial pursuit dovetails into another, 
and all constitute an indivisible whole, they will not wan- 
tonly destroy what generations of industrial and social 
forces have brought forth. 

Trade unionism offered a seemingly more practical 
solution of labor problems and, what is more im- 
portant to the masses, immediate advantages. Every 
craft was to organize its members in local unions de- 
manding high entrance fees and monthly dues, prac- 
ticing collective bargaining with employers and par- 
liamentarians or electing their own representatives 
to parliament. Thus shorter hours and higher wages 
could be obtained at least for the organized minority, 
the aristocracy of labor, at the cost, it is true, of an 
increase in the cost of living for unionized and non- 
unionized workers alike. 

Craft organization is as exclusive as guild 
organization and aims at benefiting not labor but 
the chosen few who succeed in saving the 
required fee and also in being admitted to mem- 
bership (which is not always secured by the mere 
payment of a fee and perfect eligibility). The spirit 
of craft unions is well illustrated by a quotation from 
an address delivered by John H. Walker, President 
of the Illinois Miners before the Illinois convention 
of 1912 : 

I would also favor the discussion and consideration of 
the question of compelling new members to serve apprentice- 
ships and minimize the number of apprenticeships as much 
as possible, thus preventing an influx of new members. 

William D. Haywood said in a speech on the Gen- 
eral Strike, delivered on August 20 ; 1911 ; 



A DEFINITION 6 

Remember that there are 35,000,000 workers in the United 
States who cannot join the American Federation of Labor. 
It isn't a working class organization. It realizes that by 
improving the labor power of a few individuals and keep- 
ing them on the inside of a corral, keeping others out by 
raising initiation fees or by closing the books, the favored 
few are made valuable to the capitalists; it is simply a com- 
bination of job trusts. 

In Why strikes are lost, William E. Trautman 
shows us the consequences of such a selfish policy on 
the part of craft unions : 

Because craft unions charge arbitrary initiation fees, 
some of them as the green bottle blowers, five hundred dol- 
lars, and others from fifty to two hundred dollars, it follows 
that men and women who have not the means are debarred 
and driven to become strike breakers. In the craft unions 
if a man loses his job and finds employment in another in- 
dustry, and wants to remain a union member, he is charged 
another initiation fee. Some workers have to carry cards of 
four or five different unions in their pocket and pay dues to 
as many. Do you wonder that strike breakers are bred out 
of such conditions? 

The same and other charges are brought up against 
French, English and German craft unions by the 
French syndicalist, Hubert Lagardelle: 

Unions are applying to their own members the autocratic 
rules laid down by capitalists. They have organized a work- 
ers' government as harsh as the bourgeois government, a 
workers' bureaucracy as heavy footed as the bourgeois bu- 
reaucracy, a central office which tells the workers what they 
can do or cannot do, a thing which destroys in the unions 
and in their members all spirit of independence and initia- 
tive and frequently leads its victims to wish for a return of 
capitalist autocracy. 



6 THE NEW UNIONISM 

English and German unions have also observed that the 
most valuable thing in bourgeois society was money. . . . 
Hence their miserly practices, their habit of hoarding, their 
enormous reserve funds, the transformation of unions into 
mutualist enterprises, into provident and savings institu- 
tions, into financial agencies. What freedom have they con- 
quered, these workers who beside their employers have given 
themselves other workers as masters; in what respect are 
they revolutionary, those proletarians who are hoarding 
money in the belief that they can beat capitalists at the 
capitalistic game? 

'Not only does craft organization preclude all 
solidarity between union laborers and non-union 
laborers but the history of craft unionism is a con- 
tinuous record of fights between closely allied crafts, 
one craft trying to prevent another craft from doing 
certain work or scabbing (as the English say, black 
legging), on another craft union strike. 

We quote from the journal of the (English) A. S. 
E. (Amalgamated Society of Engineers) the follow- 
ing items : 

The question has again come under consideration, in con- 
sequence of the boilermakers having threatened a stoppage 
of work, the demand made being that the whole of the stud- 
ding of armor plates, apart from the protection of am- 
munition hoists, was the work of the boilermakers. . . . 
Evidence was produced by the firm showing that since the 
introduction of this studded armor that studs had been put 
in by engineers, and we therefore, restated our full claim 
to put in all studs on machine-faced, scarphed joints. 

Encroachments upon our work by pipe fitters have been 
put right. These pipe fitters have now been taken under 
the wing of the Plumbers' Society. ... At another firm a 
question of demarcation as between ourselves and plumbers 
was settled in our favor. 



A DEFINITION ? 

A question of demarcation has arisen between the Boiler- 
makers' Society at the L. C. C, Generating Station, Green- 
wich. Apparently the management has not deemed it neces- 
sary to employ a boilermaker on the staff, and our members 
have been working on the tubes in some of the boilers, 
the scurfers doing the remainder. On attention being called 
to it, we have intimated that our members have no desire to 
continue on this work, and would be pleased to see a boiler- 
maker employed; but the management have so far declined 
to accede to the request of the Boilermakers' Society by em- 
ploying one, and it is now under consideration as to whether 
our members should refuse to do any such work, and 
thereby assist the boilermakers in obtaining the employment 
of one of their members on the work. 

What such a spirit may lead to in time of strike 
was told graphically in a speech by Eugene V. Debs : 

While we are upon this question, let us consult industrial 
history a moment. We will begin with the craft union rail- 
road strike of 1888. The Brotherhood of Engineers and the 
Brotherhood of Firemen on the C. B. & Q. system went out 
on strike. Some 2000 engineers and firemen vacated their 
posts and went out on one of the most bitterly contested 
railroad strikes in the history of the country. When they 
went out, the rest of the employes, especially the conduct- 
ors, who were organized in craft unions of their own, re- 
mained at their posts, and the union conductors piloted the 
scab engineers over the line. I know whereof I speak. I 
was there. I took an active part in that strike. 

I saw craft union pitted against craft union, and I saw 
the Brotherhood of Engineers and the Brotherhood of Fire- 
men completely wiped from the C. B. & Q. system. And 
now you find these men, seventeen years later, scattered all 
over the United States. They had to pay the penalty of 
their ignorance in organizing a craft instead of organizing 
as a whole. 

In 1892 a strike occurred on the Lehigh Valley; the same 



8 THE NEW UNIONISM 

result. Another on the Toledo, Ann Arbor & North Mich- 
igan. Same result. The engineers have had no strike from 
that time to this. Every time they have had a strike they 
have been defeated. 

The railroad corporations are shrewd enough to recognize 
the fact that if they can keep certain departments in their 
employ in a time of emergency they can defeat all the rest. 
A manager of a railroad who can keep control of fifteen per 
cent, of the old men can allow eighty-five per cent, to go out 
on strike and defeat them every time. That is why they 
have made some concessions to the engineers and conductors 
and brakemen, and now and then to the switchmen, the most 
militant labor union of them all. 

A year and a half ago the telegraph operators on the Mis- 
souri, Kansas & Texas went out on strike. The engineer re- 
mained at his post ; so did the fireman ; the conductor at his ; 
and the brakeman at his. And they hauled the scabs that 
flocked from all parts of the country to the several points 
along the line, and delivered them in good order to take the 
places vacated by the strikers; worked all around them and 
with them until they had mastered the details of their sev- 
eral duties ; and having done this, the strike was at an end, 
and the 1300 craft unionists out of jobs. You will find 
them scattered all over the country. 

Whatever apparent advantages were secured by the 
craft union system for an organized minority are 
now in danger of being totally obliterated by recent 
developments in the industrial field. The skilled 
worker entrenched in his union occupied a well nigh 
impregnable position when the mastery of one craft 
presupposed years of schooling and practice. Now- 
adays two factors are conspiring to reduce skilled 
labor to a rank of insignificance. The ever increas- 
ing specialization characteristic of industrial progress 
divides up jobs into almost every one of their com- 



A DEFINITION a 

ponent motions so that any individual of average 
intelligence may learn in a day or a week how 
to run any mechanical appliance used in shop or 
mill. 

Besides specialized machinery, inventors have been 
at work producing apparatus which reduce not only 
the number of unskilled laborers necessary to accom- 
plish a given task (we are not alluding to steam- 
shovels or grain elevators and the like), but the num- 
ber of highly skilled artisans, accomplishing the least 
mechanical type of work. 

For instance the organization of the glass blowers 
was so perfect that entrance fees had been raised to 
$500 and that it was contemplated to raise them to 
$1000 in the case of foreign workers. 

Of a sudden the Owens machine, at first considered 
as unpractical, threatens to wipe off entirely the craft 
of glassblowing. The Owens machine invented in 
1903 can now be used to blow any glass receptacle 
from a half-ounce bottle to a twelve gallon demijohn. 
In the year 1909, forty-nine Owens machines with 
a producing capacity per machine of about 111 gross 
in twenty-four hours, produced about 1,700,824 gross. 
It would have required 1320 skilled blowers to pro- 
duce the same number of bottles. The union had 
2395 men idle. Up to January, 1913, the advance of 
the machine was slow owing to the fact that the out- 
put of the Owens Company's machine shop was 
limited to fifty machines a year. The new shop 
which is now open will be able to turn out over one 
hundred automatic blowers a year. Furthermore the 
new machine having ten arms instead of six can turn 



10 THE NEW UNIONISM 

out 200 gross ai day instead of 111. In less than 
two years the trade of glass blower will have entirely 
disappeared. This is of course an extreme case but 
statistics prove that many other crafts are threatened 
with extinction in a very near future. 

In the Westinghouse Electric Company's works in 
Pittsburg 19,000 men were employed in 1907. In 
1911 the output was the same as in 1907 but the 
number of men employed was only 10,000. Im- 
proved machinery had reduced the working force by 
almost fifty per cent, in four years. 

The same tendency is observable in the iron, steel, 
cement and other basic industries. The high-priced 
stereotypers are being displaced very fast by the auto 
machine which even in its imperfect state, enables 
now one man and a boy to do the work of four men. 

Thus far " labor " in every country had meant 
organized skilled labor, the one force capital had to 
contend with. At present " everything combines to 
place the unskilled laborer in a strategic position in 
the labor struggle" as Austin Lewis writes in 
Proletarian and Petit Bourgeois: 

He has become the one vital factor without which no vic- 
tory in the fight between the laborer and the capitalist can 
be had. . . . The unskilled laborer is not as a rule a voter; 
he can seldom stay long enough in one place to acquire resi- 
dence. . . . The theory in the United States at least is that 
such employment is permanent only for the unfit ... it is 
no longer tenable. . . . The appropriation of public lands, 
the practical closing of opportunity, the degradation of the 
crafts in face of the consolidation of industry, all tend not 
only to shut the avenues of escape for the unskilled laborer 
but to greatly increase his numbers. 



A DEFINITION 11 

Although New Unionists are not concerned with 
the opinions of dead theorists who could in no way 
foretell the gigantic industrial advance of the pres- 
ent day we may remind the reader that Marx always 
disparaged the role which trade unions were to 
play in the social revolution. He said, in an ad- 
dress delivered before the Workingmen's Interna- 
tional : 

Trade unions are efficient as centers of resistance against 
the encroachments of capital. They fail to a certain extent, 
however, from an injudicious use of their power. They fail 
generally because they confine themselves to a guerilla war 
against the effects of the existing system instead of trying 
to change it in its entirety, instead of using their organized 
forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working 
class, that is to say, the ultimate abolition of the wage sys- 
tem. 

Reformist and revolutionary socialists tell the 
workers that if socialists can only capture the State 
through propaganda leading, either to an overwhelm- 
ing victory at the polls or to a successful revolution, 
the socialist state or the socialist government will run 
the nation and its industries for the benefit of the 
workers. 

Only it is not evident that the tyranny of a social- 
ist state would be more easily borne than that of a 
capitalist state. Furthermore the process may con- 
sume a great many years. Finally the failure of 
several socialist ministers and of one socialist premier 
in France to accord to the workers a treatment differ- 
ent from what they would have expected at the 
hands of a radical or reformist, is unlikely to spur 



1% THE NEW UNIONISM 

the workers to renewed efforts to secure representation 
in parliament. 

The ballot has magnificent theoretical possibilities ; 
practically, its results are slow and doubtful ; besides 
the ballot is restricted to a certain class of the popula- 
tion and at least in every country to a certain race, 
while all classes and races work side by side in every 
country of the world. 

Hubert Lagardelle, at the socialist congress held in 
Nancy on August 14, 1907, said: 

The two tendencies of modern socialism (reformed and 
revolutionary) are equally Utopian, for they attribute to the 
coercive power of the state a creative value it lacks en- 
tirely. . • . You cannot conjure overnight out of nothing an 
organized system of society. Whatever authority you may 
dispose of, you will not impart to the workers who elected 
socialist candidates, to the voters, who for frequently futile 
and abstract motives are following you, the ability to reg- 
ulate production and distribution. You will be the masters 
of the hour, you will hold all the power which yesterday was 
vested in the middle classes, you will pile up decree upon de- 
cree, law upon law, but you will not work any miracle, you 
will not at a stroke enable the workers to replace the capi- 
talists. 

Why should the coming into power of a few socialist poli- 
ticians transform the psychology of the masses, modify their 
feelings, increase their ability, create new life habits and 
enable a society of free men to take the place of a society of 
masters and slaves? No, it is not upon a mere change in 
the governmental personnel that the transformation of the 
world depends. That would be too simple, and progress de- 
mands much more. A social system is not born without a 
long preparation and in this connection, syndicalism, with a 
more practical view of things pits against your theories, 
what I have called institutional socialism. We wish to re- 



A DEFINITION 13 

mind the workers that no change will be possible until they 
have created with their own hands a system of institutions 
destined to replace the bourgeois system. 

The state, in its present form, is necessarily and essen- 
tially national. It was created to defend and bring pros- 
perity to a definite area of land, and with a tendency to 
enrich itself at the cost of all other national groups. 
This means simply capitalism — the gospel of exploitation 
— transferred to groups or states instead of individuals. 
The state is capitalistic in its deepest essence. It was 
started for the sake of exploitation, and the best governed 
state must always remain capitalistic, because its attitude to 
other states is either hostile or indifferent. 

Therefore, when socialists look to the state as the true 
commonwealth and want the state to take possession of the 
sources of wealth and to abolish the abuses of monopoly or 
exploitation, they will necessarily drift into Nationalism — 
as we see it happen in Germany and France — and thereby 
lose their true socialistic character. 

This was felt by the leaders of anarchism — when the 
great schism between Bakunin and Marx took place. 

For identical reasons the Welsh miners who are 
ardent syndicalists oppose nationalization or govern- 
ment ownership of public utilities proposed by reform 
socialists. " It would/' one of their speakers said, 
" lead to the formation of a national trust with all 
the force of the government behind it, whose one con- 
cern will be to see that the industry is run in such 
a way as to pay the interest on the bonds with which 
the coal owners are paid out, and to extract as much 
more profit as possible in order to relieve the taxation 
of other landlords and capitalists." 

Lagardelle considers that the socialist view of the 
great change is lazy and sterile. 



14 THE NEW UNIONISM 

If in order to build up a freer world we must simply let 
capitalist society drift down the stream of its own evolution, 
what becomes of me, as an individual? Am I the weak tool 
of irresistible forces, of economic and political factors which 
are to save me against my wishes and transport me into some 
Earthly Paradise? ... If the workers wish to emancipate 
themselves from the tutelage of employer and state, and live 
without masters of production or masters of politics, they 
must first train themselves for action and educate their 
will power. This is why syndicalism says to them: Have 
faith in yourselves only! Your salvation is in yourselves. 
The world will only be what you will make it. . . . And the 
syndicalist practice of " direct action " teaches men that 
nothing is preordained, for it is men who make history. . . . 
While indirect action lulls vitality to sleep, saps will power 
and panders to the lowest human instincts, direct syndicalist 
action stimulates the dormant powers of the individual and 
combats his low desire for passivity. . . . 

Even if the ballot and parliamentary action could 
solve the social problem for certain classes of workers 
there would remain the ever-increasing masses of un- 
skilled workers to whom the ballot is of no earthly 
use. Tossed from one end of the country to the other 
by the ebb and flow of the labor market they seldom 
remain long enough in one region to qualify as voters, 
not to mention being eligible to any office. 

According to John Sandgren there are in this 
country " approximately eighteen million people who 
can in no manner be directly interested in politics, 
to wit: 1,700,000 children wage workers, 4,800,000 
women wage workers, 3,500,000 foreign wage 
workers, 5,000,000 negro wage workers, 3,000,000 
floating and otherwise disfranchised wage workers." 

Furthermore, the demand for unskilled labor to- 



A DEFINITION 15 

getter with the development of means of communica- 
tion may take the worker to foreign countries where 
he is denied the franchise unless it be some of the 
South American republics which give at least the mu- 
nicipal ballot to every newcomer. Everywhere else 
workers of that class lose their local and national in- 
terests and acquire more and more the international 
point of view. The question of taxation, municipali- 
zation or nationalization of public utilities, cannot 
interest them. 

The ballot, finally, is a way of delegating one's 
power to demand the satisfaction of one's wants to 
another individual designated more by his powers of 
persuasion than by his knowledge of our wants to 
speak in our behalf. More leisure, more education 
and the consequent growth of intelligent individual- 
ism have sapped the belief of the workers in the 
superiority and omniscience of leaders. They real- 
ize more and more keenly that the emancipation of the 
workers must be accomplished by the workers them- 
selves. " No longer will the proletariat satisfy itself 
with the belief that parliamentary action will bring 
the relief which it so earnestly deserves. ... It has 
learned the lesson that political power is merely the 
reflex of economic power and that political advantage 
can only be had through economic superiority." 
(Austin Lewis in Proletarian and Petit Bourgeois.) 

The tendency among socialists all over the world 
is rather to keep the dogma pure than to look for 
practical results. Barring the French Socialist party 
in which three different groups have finally given up 
anathematizing one another and have agreed upon a 



16 THE NEW UNIONISM 

modus vivendi, the various parties are busy expelling 
nonconformists, that is, in the last analysis, men who 
are more concerned with bringing about the great 
change in a modern and systematic way than with 
the correct interpretation of Marx's thought. The 
clear-headed worker who is unwilling to wait cen- 
turies for his emancipation is supplied with dam- 
nable evidence against socialist leaders in the form 
of praise showered upon socialism by the capitalist 
press. 

The Berliner Tageblatt for January 1.5, 1913, de- 
clared that " the Socialist party was at present so 
fettered by its bureaucracy and its dogmas that al- 
though one-third of the electorate was socialistic, 
conservatives did not have to feel in the least dis- 
turbed." 

In the United States, the Century Magazine greets 
the expulsion of Industrialists from the Socialist 
party as " a great gain for true conservatism." The 
World's Work foresees that " the socialists whom we 
have been brought up to regard as dangerous radicals, 
will be classified as one of the strong and conserva- 
tive bulwarks of the country." 

In devoting so much space to an exposition of what 
The New Unionism is not we have followed in the 
main the example of the syndicalist and industrialist 
writers, especially of England and France, who take 
great pains to make their position clear in regard 
to reformism, socialism, trade unionism and anarch- 
ism. When we consider how frequently socialism, a 
much older doctrine, is constantly associated in the 
lay mind with its absolute opposite, anarchism, such 



A DEFINITION 17 

a protracted foreword may not appear out of place. 

What, then, is the New Unionism ? 

It is the practice which will enable the workers to 
assume as the return for their labor the full control 
of the various industries. It is, mark the word, a 
practice not a theory. It is, to quote the word of 
a former secretary of the French Confederation of 
Labor, " the result of much experimenting, and is 
shaped much more by actual conditions that by any 
individual in particular. These practical experi- 
ments haven't followed a straight line by any means ; 
the movement is characterized by much incoherence, 
it brims with inconsistency. And it is thus because 
it is not the result of actions performed in accord- 
ance with certain dogmas but because it is a prod- 
uct of life, modified and renewed from day to 



" The great difficulty one encounters in a move- 
ment of this type is the bringing into being of a truly 
syndicalist life which is not all on the surface. This 
cannot be done by making conditions and actions fit 
one given theory but by endeavoring to direct them 
towards some definite ends formulated as concisely 
as possible." 

All human beings regardless of age, sex, race, na- 
tionality or craft employed in any industry must en- 
roll themselves in "one big union." For administra- 
tive purposes only, the " big union " can be divided 
up into industrial unions, not craft unions. 

A craft union is organized according to the tools 
used, the industrial union according to the product 
created by the industrial group. For instance, in- 



IS THE HEW, UNIONISM 

stead of chartering a weavers' union, a loom-fixers' 
union, a menders' union, a twisters' union, a mule 
spinners' union — and other separate unions based 
upon old-time craft divisions in the textile industry 
— the I. W. W. chartered one Local Industrial Union 
of Textile Producers. Office boys under age, chore- 
women, bookkeepers, colored workers, engineers, mill 
hands, be they all natives or foreign born, are welcome 
as members of the one big union which excludes none 
but idlers. 

Some ill-informed writers insist on making a sharp 
distinction between industrialism and syndicalism on 
the ground that " a big union," for instance the 
American I. W. W., is an independent organism, 
while the syndicalists of France or England are only 
a faction of a larger organization founded originally 
on craft lines. The principles however are the same, 
much as their present policy and immediate methods 
may apparently differ. 

Such distinctions are usually drawn by adversa- 
ries of the movement who are endeavoring to stamp 
it as foreign and ill-adapted to " our temperament." 

For instance we notice that, while Algernon Lee 
warns Americans against syndicalism which is. too 
typically Latin ever to suit the Anglo-Saxon tempera- 
ment, Turati warns Italians against it because it was 
too typically French and Australian laborites warn 
their countrymen against it because it is too typically 
American, etc 

Above all things no one should be prevented from 
joining the union by financial considerations. The 
more destitute a worker is, the more he needs the suj>- 



A DEFINITION 19 

port of his fellow workers. The entrance fees and 
monthly dues of the New Unions are purely nominal. 
Neither must a union member who fails to find em- 
ployment in his trade be penalized if he wishes to 
take up some other trade, temporarily or permanently. 
In the American Federation of Labor, for instance, if 
a unionized engineer out of work wishes to take a job 
as electrician and yet does not relish the idea of being 
a " scab/' he must pay a new entrance fee and keep 
up his monthly dues in both unions. Some men 
carry the cards of four or five different unions and 
pay dues to as many. And let us remember that en- 
trance fees range from $25 to $500. 

The New Unionism does away with such abuses. 
Once a member of the One Big Union, man, woman, or 
child may change jobs as frequently as circumstances 
may demand and step without further expense into 
the union of workers employed in whatever industry 
fate may compel him or her to work. This elimi- 
nates both jurisdictional disputes such as are rend- 
ing English Unions asunder and the embittering con- 
flicts between striking and non-striking unions such 
as Debs described. The motto of the New Unionism 
is : " An injury to one is an injury to all." 

Gay lord Wilshire writes : 

Syndicalism has no thought of arranging industry upon 
the basis of each group of workers in each industry holding 
up the community to the full extent of its economic power 
in order to extract the greatest amount of reward for its par- 
ticular form of labor. 

The remuneration of the workers will be determined either 
by deeds, or by needs, as may hereafter be decided, but most 



20 THE NEW UNIONISM 

certainly not upon the basis of allowing him a reward ac- 
cording to the importance of his industrial product to the 
community, for that would be merely changing the present 
system, with its small number of capitalist exploiters, to a 
worse system, with a myriad of exploiting workers. 

Thus organized, the workers will present a united 
front to the employers and their strength will be 
well-nigh irresistible. Thus the hours of labor will 
be reduced, child labor abolished, competition between 
workers will disappear and the surplus army of un- 
employed labor reabsorbed into the active social body. 
Thus a gradual expropriation of capital will take 
place, and the workers will finally receive the full 
value of everything they produce. 

Moreover, to quote W. E. Trautman, " the workers 
will become conscious of their power, and they will 
develop the faculties to operate the factories and 
mills, etc. . . . through agencies and instruments of 
their own creation." 

How will the change come about ? This is rather 
hard to foretell. Some socialists of an optimistic 
turn of mind predict that the transition from capital- 
ism to socialism will be hardly noticeable. The same 
uncertainty prevails as to the change from capitalism 
to industrialism. 

Eobert Rives La Monte, who attempts to reconcile 
socialism and the New Unionism by calling the latter 
New Socialism wrote in the International Socialist 
Review for September, 1912: 

The New Socialism tends to assure a peaceful revolution. 
This the Old could never do. Curiously enough the idea has 
gained currency in America that Haywood, Mann and the 



A DEFINITION 21 

New Socialists generally are advocates of force and violence, 
while the Old Socialists of the parliamentary type, such as 
Berger, Hillqnit and Spargo, love peace and eschew violence. 
This is almost the exact reverse of the truth. It was the par- 
liamentarian, Berger, who in a signed article advised every 
Socialist to buy a rifle. It was the parliamentarian, Hill- 
quit, who said that if the Socialists were not allowed to 
seat peacefully the officials they had elected they would, " if 
need be, fight like tigers on the barricades." 

The New Socialists look on riots, barricades and street 
fighting as hopelessly obselete with the capitalist class in 
full possession of all the machinery of war. The weapon 
upon which they rely is the power of the workers peacefully 
to fold their arms in such numbers as to paralyze industry 
and force the unconditional surrender of the capitalist class. 

How will the industrial commonwealth manage 
itself? Here again the leaders of the New Union- 
ism have placed the wishes of the actual workers 
above the imaginings of philosophers and theorists. 

The question blanks sent out regularly by the 
French Confederation of Labor (see page 89) show 
that the New Unionism is not depending for inspira- 
tion upon the fanciful writings of a Proudhon or a 
Bellamy. 

To quote again from Robert Bives La Monte : 

While the New Socialism is not in essentials in conflict 
with the Old, it easily answers two objections that always 
gave pause to the apologists of the Old. The first of these 
is implied in the common query : " How are you going to 
see to it that the world's work is done after your victory ? " 
The Old Socialism, looking forward to a political victory, 
had no convincing answer. The New Socialism says the 
very organization that wins the victory will carry on so- 
ciety's work after the victory is won, and that without any 
interval of disorganization. Indeed it is impossible for the 



22 THE NEW UNIONISM 

New Socialism to win until it is fully prepared morally and 
technically to shoulder the responsibilities to mankind the 
victory will impose upon it. 

The second of these objections to Socialism is commonly 
stated : " You must change human nature to make Socialism 
practicable." The New Socialist answers, the process of ob- 
taining Socialist victory will change human nature ; our vic- 
tory will only come after human nature has been sufficiently 
changed. 

Many writers on the subject of the New Unionism 
concede that but for the propaganda carried on 
through the various socialist organizations the ad- 
vent of the New Unionism would have been consider- 
ably delayed if not made impossible, and they con- 
sider the New Unionism as the logical successor to 
socialism. " Syndicalism grew out of Socialism/' 
Frederick Van Eeden says, " as the Reformation 
grew out of the Old Christianity." 

It took fourteen centuries of blundering and aberration 
to convince a few honest people that existing Christianity 
was not what Christ had really meant, and that the Roman 
Catholic Church was not the sort of an establishment He 
had in mind as a result worth being crucified for. 

Things move now at a more rapid rate. Socialism has 
been a great movement for somewhat over a century. We 
have seen it split up into Communism, Collectivism, Anarch- 
ism, and Social Democracy, or Political Socialism. 

None of these have brought us what we hoped for. 

Syndicalism is for Socialism what the Reformation was 
for the Christian Religion. 

According to Gaylord Wilshire, it is quite useless 
to connect in any way syndicalism and socialism : 

Syndicalism is inverted Socialism. The difference be- 
tween Syndicalism and Socialism is the difference between a 



A DEFimTION 23 

man and a machine. The man himself controls his own 
activities; the machine is controlled from without. 

Both Syndicalism and Socialism look to a world-wide 
democratic organization of the workers for cooperative pro- 
duction and distribution. But whereas Socialism looks to 
social organization, proceeding from the present Capitalist 
State downward to the workers, the Syndicalist looks to the 
evolution proceeding upward from the workers to organ- 
ized society. 

Instead of the State giving industrial control to the work- 
ers, as the Socialists fondly hope, the Syndicalists look to the 
workers taking such control and giving it to the community. 
— (Syndicalism. What it is.) 



CHAPTER II 
direct aoticot: i« thu stbikb 

Pouget writes : 

Direct action means this: the workers struggling con- 
stantly with their present environment, no longer expect any- 
thing from men, powers or forces outside of their own 
ranks. It means that, against our present society, which 
only knows the " citizen," a new society is rising, made up 
of " producers." The producers realizing that the social 
body is shaped by its system of production, intend to trans- 
form entirely the capitalist mode of production, to eliminate 
the employers and thereby to conquer industrial freedom. 
. Direct action means that the working classes recognize the 
principle of freedom and autonomy instead of bowing to 
the principle of authority. 

And Vandervelde writes in the (Brussels) Peuple: 

In order to take from the capitalist a bone that contains 
yet a little marrow, it is not sufficient for the worker to give 
his representatives a formal warrant to fight in his be- 
half. . . . The great truth contained in the theory of direct 
action is that one cannot obtain vital reforms through inter- 
mediaries. . . . The workers have relied too much thus far, 
on political and cooperative action which follows the line of 
least resistance ; they have deluded themselves into believing 
that as soon as they would have representatives in parlia- 
ment, roast squabs would naturally fall into their plates. 

Yvetot writes in his A. B. 0. Syndicalists 

24 



DIRECT ACTION: I. THE STRIKE 25 

Legislation affecting the workers is perfectly useless un- 
less it is a confirmation of advantages already conquered by 
them. 

Pierrot in Syndicalisme et Revolution remarks also 
that: 

Representatives in parliament, be they socialist or not, 
move only under pressure from public opinion and when 
they fear the possibility of disorders. 

We reviewed in Chapter I the various arguments 
advanced by the New Unionists against parliamen- 
tary action and the use of the ballot. Initiative, ref- 
erendum and recall are of slim interest to New Un- 
ionists for the same reason; they presuppose years 
of parliamentary propaganda and are, in final analy- 
sis, a confession of the popular belief that representa- 
tives will some time misrepresent their constitu- 
ency. 

New Unionists contend furthermore that political 
action has a tendency to create disunion within the 
ranks of labor. 

Behold the efforts made by labor unions to have an 
anti-injunction bill passed. Three times since 1889 
an anti-injunction bill has been voted upon favorably 
by the House of Representatives, but never has it be- 
come a law. The Senate committee on the judiciary 
to which it was referred never took any action upon 
it. The majority of the men who twenty-three years 
ago, decided to take steps to limit the power of in- 
junctions are now old men ; many have died, without 
even a gleam of hope that their wishes would be some 
day inscribed on the statute books. 



26 THE NEW UNIONISM 

The publicity and lobby work without whicK 
neither the public nor the house would realize the 
importance of a bill, consume a good deal of the 
workingman's cash. Also when a case drags out for 
twenty-three years and is not nearer solution in 1912 
that it was in 1889, the working man's mind harbors 
a suspicion that the representative, a man of a differ- 
ent class, the press agent, an " intellectual," the lob- 
byist, a journalist or lawyer, are not as energetic and 
aggressive as the case would require them to be. 

The expense account or, as slang has it, the " swin- 
dle sheet " of the various lobby " workers " is apt to be 
questioned by simple men who are innocent of taxicab 
rides and unfamiliar with the drink checks issued 
in fashionable bars. The judgment of those who 
once suggested the legislative campaign or had a part 
in appointing the " workers " comes in for a good 
deal of hard criticism. 

Behold on the other hand some of the longest 
strikes in the history of modern labor. It was m 
every case a question of only a few weeks or a few 
months. Whether a strike ends in victory or de- 
feat, the suspense is soon over; furthermore the 
strikers themselves are caring for their own interests ; 
the strike is an education for them, as it affords them 
more leisure to discuss conditions from every point 
of view. In the meeting hall they become better 
acquainted with one another; in certain cases, as in 
the Lawrence strike or in the cooks' and waiters' 
strike, the public is apprised of facts which could not 
have been exposed through any other procedure. At 
the end of the conflict the men, beaten or victorious, 



DIEECT ACTION: I. THE STRIKE 2? 

are better united for having fought together shoulder 
to shoulder. 

French syndicalists are fond of referring to 
Dreyfus's retrial and final rehabilitation as an ex- 
ample of successful direct action. For several years, 
useless attempts were made by some of Dreyfus's 
friends to obtain for the unfortunate officer through 
parliamentary means the benefit of a new trial. It 
was not until a nation-wide agitation, resulting sev- 
eral times in bloody riots, had shown to Parliament 
the real state of the public mind that Dreyfus was 
allowed to wage a fair fight for his life. 

The results of direct pressure exerted by the 
workers upon the authorities to save Durand and 
Eousset in France, Ettor, Giovannitti and Caruso in 
the United States from being railroaded to the scaf- 
fold are present to every reader's mind. There was 
no essential difference between the Haymarket case 
and the Lawrence case. The attitude of the workers 
alone prevented the Italian agitators from sharing 
the fate of the Chicago anarchists. 

Other cases of a similar nature uphold the New 
Unionists' contention that it is not only easier but 
more rational to call the workers out of the shop for 
a distinct, concrete purpose than to lead them to the 
polls where they will deposit a ballot in favor of 
several candidates unknown to them and whose acts 
will have only a problematic bearing upon their 
economic conditions. 

Direct action may assume two different forms; 
either the workers will stop working altogether or 
they will perform work under conditions detrimental 



28 THE NEW UNIONISM 

to their employers. In the first case they will strike, 
in the second they will apply sabotage. 

The aims and purposes of a New Unionist strike 
are quite different from those of a trade union strike. 
Trade unions admit that employers have a right to 
live as employers and therefore a trade union strike 
is merely a readjustment of the workers' remunera- 
tion made necessary by the rising cost of living. 

New Unionists deny that employers have any right 
to exist as employers. The employer being in their 
eyes, not a part of the social body but a parasite on 
the social body, must be driven out of existence by 
all available means much as pathogenic microbes must 
be driven out of a patient's system, the choice of 
remedies being determined solely by the physician's 
care not to affect any of the patient's vital organs. 

New Unionists will not, therefore, go on strike 
for the exclusive purpose of securing material ad- 
vantages of a temporary nature. When they return 
to work they do not pledge themselves to remain at 
work for any definite period of time, they may strike 
again a week later without giving notice, without 
even giving any reason for quitting work. 

When the unionized workers demand an increase 
in wages of say, one dollar a week, they leave the 
shops until the increase is granted, after which th«y 
sign with their employers an agreement by which they 
bind themselves to work at the new rate for two or 
three years. 

A successful strike like the Lawrence strike on the 
other hand may assure the workers certain advan- 
tages, but it gives the employers no guarantee of 



DIRECT ACTION: I. THE STRIKE 29 

peace. The fact that the satisfied mill hands re- 
turned to work did not imply the settlement, even 
temporarily, of a labor dispute. It was a mere truce 
during which the attacking forces planned to re- 
cuperate and fit themselves for a renewed attack on an 
enemy with whom no treaty shall be signed and who 
must finally either destroy the workers or be de- 
stroyed by them. 

Workers on strike may either remain on the em- 
ployer's premises or withdraw from them. In the 
" folded arms " strike the workers remain idle at their 
posts for several hours or several days at a time, re- 
suming work as soon as the employers secure 
a sufficient contingent of strike breakers. This 
method was applied several times by the French tele- 
phone girls, once in particular when Minister Simian, 
who had refused to consider the employes' demands, 
visited the Central Telephone Exchange in Paris. 

When the workers walk out of the shops or offices 
they may do so to enforce their own demands or in 
order to show their sympathy with other groups of 
workers on strike. For instance, when forty-five 
members of the Millmen's Union in Colorado City 
were discharged for taking part in labor struggles, 
5000 Cripple Creek miners struck in sympathy. 

" Irritation strikes " are short spasmodic strikes 
during which the workers leave their jobs without 
notice, returning to work for a while, then withdraw- 
ing again without notice until they attain their ob- 
ject. 

In industries employing only skilled labor, the 
" bumper strike " devised by Victor Griffuehles (see 



30 THE NEW UNIONISM 

page 86) enables the workers to harass employers 
for a protracted period of time without exhausting 
their financial resources. In 1907 as the outlook was 
becoming very dark for the Paris jewelry workers on 
strike, Griffuehles ordered them back to work with 
the exception of those employed in one shop. Those 
few men were allowed to remain on strike for another 
week during which time their brother jewelers levied 
an assessment on their own salaries to insure them a 
living wage. At the end of the week the strikers 
were sent to work and a walk out was declared in 
another shop the employes of which were supported 
in the same manner. 

That particular bumper strike, however, was not 
inaugurated until the beginning of the slack season 
and the employers, realizing that the union had no 
reserve funds, responded to Griffuehles' tactics by a 
general lockout which starved the men into submis- 
sion. 

The question of timely strikes and of economical 
strikes has been considered with special care by all 
organizers. To be able to strike at the proper time, 
that is when factories and mills are rushed with or- 
ders, the workers must not be tied by any contracts 
with their employers. Contracts not only prevent 
the workers from enforcing their own demands but 
also from striking in sympathy with other crafts and 
thus making an impressive display of strength and 
solidarity. 

Finally as Vincent St. John put it in his descrip- 
tion of the I. W. W. methods (see page 104), "the 
day of successful long strikes is past." A long strike 



DIRECT ACTION: I. THE STRIKE 31 

exhausts the strikers' resources and if lost is a source 
of much discouragement; after being defeated the 
men must remain at work for a long while regardless 
of conditions, until their strike fund is replenished. 
We show elsewhere (page 125) how the English 
railroadmen's concern for their investments hampered 
them in their fight. 

Yvetot, one of the leaders of the French Confed- 
eration of Labor, writes in his A. B. C. Syndicalists 

Unions with big reserve funds are of use only in caring 
for the sick and the unemployed. Instead of being a wea- 
pon in the fight against long hours and thus decreasing the 
amount of sickness among the workers those big reserve 
funds are only used to perpetuate the evil by helping the 
sufferers. 

However large a strike fund may be, we know very well 
that it will never exceed the employers' fund. Witness the 
famous strike of English engineers: Twenty-seven millions 
were spent in strike pay and yet the strike failed. 

The tendencies among 'New Unionists all over 
the world is toward the abolition of strike funds. 
For New Unionists no longer consider what material 
advantages were achieved when they estimate the re- 
sults of one given strike. Statisticians waste their 
time computing how many strikes were lost and how 
many were won. In many cases a strike from which 
the workers derive no concrete advantage may con- 
stitute a decisive victory from the point of view of 
future struggles. It cannot be said that the Hotel 
Workers' strikes of 1912 and 1913 in the United 
States were financial successes; and yet, the strong 
organization which was born from the various strike 



32 THE NEW UNIONISM 

meetings and the solidarity which now unites, not 
only men of different nationalities employed in hotels 
and restaurants but all the workers in the different 
lines of employment, waiters, bellboys, porters, chefs, 
dishwashers, chambermaids, etc., will make the fight 
between employers and their united help very differ- 
ent in the future from what it was as long as the 
hotel and restaurant workers remained a mass of un- 
organized and hostile elements. 

New Unionist strikes are mere incidents in the class 
war ; they are tests of strength, periodical drills in the 
course of which the workers train themselves for con- 
certed action. This training is most necessary to 
prepare the masses for the final " catastrophe," the 
general strike, which will complete the expropriation 
of the employers. 

According to Haywood, Pouget and other New 
Unionist writers, the French Commune of 1870-71 
was no less than a general strike with an industrialist 
purpose. Barring the Commune, however, it may 
be said that there never has been in any country a 
strike important enough fully to justify the epithet 
of general. Furthermore the purpose of the various 
strikes alluded to as " general" was very insignifi- 
cant when one bears in mind the present New Union- 
ist connotation of the general strike. None of them 
aimed at a complete reshaping of the social system. 
Most of those manifestations were organized for the 
mere purpose of bringing strong pressure to bear upon 
parliament. 

In 1893, 200,000 Belgian workers responded to a 
call for a general strike after a universal suffrage 



DIKECT ACTION: I. THE STRIKE 33 

bill had been defeated in the Chamber and the Sen- 
ate. The government was frightened and a bill was 
passed establishing a compromise system of plural 
voting. In 1902, 300,000 Belgian workers tried 
once more to intimidate the Belgian government; 
this second attempt failed, for the government was 
fully prepared to check the strikers' activity by the 
use of the military. As this book is going to press 
the Belgian strike of April, 1913, in which some 
500,000 men took part seems to have compelled the 
Belgian government to commit itself to the principle 
of universal suffrage. 

In 1902 the Swedish workers decided to demand 
the franchise through a general strike. In several 
cities and especially in Stockholm, all the public serv- 
ices were crippled and the authorities, taken by sur- 
prise, granted a few unimportant concessions which 
apparently sufficed to appease the strikers. 

In 1903 a political general strike in Holland failed 
as the second Belgian strike had failed. 

In 1904, Italy was partly paralyzed by a general 
strike of three days' duration which ended in defeat. 

In 1903 the mere threat of a general strike fright- 
ened the French parliament into passing legislation 
which had been for many years demanded by the 
workers. In October, 1903, the Confederal Com- 
mittee of the C. G. T. held an extraordinary meeting 
to consider the suppression of employment bureaus. 
For several years the workers in several trades, par- 
ticularly in the food-producing industries had ex- 
pressed deep grievances against those offices. In 
1902 after twenty-five years of agitation and lobby- 



34 THE NEW UNIONISM 

ing, the Chamber of Deputies had passed a bill sup- 
pressing them but the Senate rejected that bill and 
the question appeared definitely shelved. Protest 
meetings were held the same day all over France un- 
der the management of the Labor Exchanges and at 
every one of them threats of violence were made by 
the speakers. Soon afterwards the Chamber by 495 
votes against fourteen decided the suppression of em- 
ployment bureaus. Four months later the Senate 
confirmed the Chamber's decision. 

The Russian general strike of October, 1904, was 
very successful as it compelled the Czar to grant the 
country a constitution. 

Very little was accomplished by the Italian strikes 
of 1906, 190T, 1908, the Swedish strike of 1909, and 
the French strikes of 1910. 

The Austrian strike of 1905 in which 300,000 
workers took part forced the government to grant uni- 
versal suffrage. 

At the time of the Morocco and Tripoli war general 
strikes were ordered in Spain and Italy but had no 
appreciable effect on the attitude of the governments 
of the two countries. 

Besides the fact that those general strikes were not 
" general " by any means, their failure was due in 
almost every case to the fear of repression by the reg- 
ular army. 

No popular movement can prevail against armed 
troops. The French revolution of 1789 would have 
been doomed to failure had the Guardes Frangaises 
not joined hands with the Paris rioters. Therefore 
preparation for the general strike entails a vigorous 



DIEECT ACTION: I. THE STEIKE 35 

antimilitary propaganda such as is conducted in 
France by the C. G. T., and has been decided upon 
by the newly created Italian Syndical Union. 
The number of deserters or of conscripts refus- 
ing to answer the summons to join their regiment 
has become very alarming for the French authorities. 
It is said to have reached last year the 100,000 mark. 
It is very doubtful if the French government would 
dare again to use the army against strikers after the 
incidents which marked the Southern winegrowers' 
riots, when a regiment not only refused to fire upon 
the advancing mob but actually showed its sympathies 
with the rioters by joining their parade. 

It happens very frequently, however, that the gov- 
ernment breaks a strike by sending enlisted men not to 
frighten the strikers but to man plants after the work- 
ers have walked out. This occurred on the occasion 
of the electrical strikes in Paris. 

There is also another ever-present danger which 
the workers must not minimize. Even if the national 
army could be relied upon to betray the established 
government at the eleventh hour, the outcome of the 
general strike would be very doubtful unless the 
fighting forces of the neighboring nations were deeply 
permeated with the revolutionary spirit. 

This is the reason why some socialists of France 
and Germany while theoretically antipatriotic are 
afraid of antimilitarist propaganda. They remem- 
ber the years following the French Eevolution when 
the powers of Europe sent their armies to invade 
France in an endeavor to stamp out the republican 
idea. They tremble lest a too successful antimilitary 



36 THE NEW UNIONISM 

propaganda might defeat its purpose by leaving a 
more radical country at the mercy of its better armed 
and more conservative neighbors. 

The campaign waged against war and militarism 
by the New Unionists of Europe especially in France 
and Germany (see chapters V and IX), will, nev- 
ertheless, be a powerful factor in preserving peace. 
It is very probable that the antiwar strike called by 
the C. G. T. when the Balkan troubles threatened 
to cav.se a European conflagration, a strike in which 
half a million workers took part, contributed in cer- 
tain measure to discouraging the bellicose financiers 
and politicians of France. 

Before closing the chapter on strikes, we may men- 
tion the fact that the French syndicalists have 
been lately carrying on a propaganda for the Mal- 
thusian strike. They call this direct action means 
of decreasing the labor supply " la greve des ventres/' 
One periodical, Renovation, has been founded for 
the purpose of disseminating among the workers a 
knowledge of the practical means by which the birth 
rate may be restricted. 



CHAPTER III 

DIRECT ACTION: II. SABOTAGE 

Besides the strike which is direct action in mass, 
the workers have at their command an insidious 
means of individual warfare which, owing to its very- 
nature, entails less important sacrifices on their part, 
and is at times fully as effective as the strike. We 
allude to sabotage. 

It was at the federal congress held in Toulouse, 
France, in 1897, that the word sabotage was added 
to the vocabulary of labor with its present connotation. 
Sabotage was originally a slang term derived from 
the word sabot, wooden shoe, and designated work 
carelessly done, literally kicked about with wooden 
shoes. Sabotage is now found even in official dic- 
tionaries with its old and its new meaning, together 
with the verb saboter and the noun saboteur. 

As a direct action weapon, sabotage is not a new 
thing by any means. In his House of Nucingen, 
Balzac, relating the bloody labor riots which took 
place in 1831 in Lyons, the city of silk mills, de- 
scribes certain reprisals practiced by the defeated 
strikers, for which he knew of no special name but 
in which everyone will recognize a form of sabotage : 

The Lyons manufacturers are soulless persons; never do 
they produce a yard of silk unless there comes a formal 

37 



38 THE NEW UNIONISM 

order for it and unless they feel safe about the settlement. 
When orders are not coming in, the weavers have to starve ; 
when they are at wor£ they earn barely enough to subsist 
on. People in jail are better off than they. After the 
July revolution conditions became so desperate that the 
weavers paraded the streets, carrying flags with the inscrip- 
tion : Bread or Death ! Republican agitators organized the 
weavers who fought both for bread and for the republican 
principle. Lyons had three days of it after which the 
weavers returned to their hovels. 

The weavers who had until then been perfectly honest, re- 
turning as much silk in the shape of cloth as they had re- 
ceived in bales, realized that they were victimized by their 
employers; while feeding the looms they kept their fingers 
well oiled; they returned weight for weight but also made 
a little money by selling the extra silk replaced in the weave 
by its weight in oil. The silk market was overrun with 
greasy silks, which might have ruined the trade of Lyons. 
. . . The result of the disturbances was the appearance of 
" gros de Naples," worth forty sous a yard. 

In 1881 the French telegraphists employed in the 
central office, dissatisfied with the rates for night work, 
sent a petition to Minister Cochery. They demanded 
ten francs instead of five for the men serving on the 
all night shift. Their demands were completely ig- 
nored. One morning Paris, which did not have as 
yet a telephone system, found itself cut off from the 
rest of the world. This lasted five days during which 
gangs of engineers headed by electrical experts bared 
all the wires connected with the central office and 
followed them inch by inch through ducts and sew- 
ers. They were unable to discover any break and 
the apparatus responded perfectly to every test. The 
fifth day the minister granted the increase in wages 



DIRECT ACTION: II SABOTAGE 39 

demanded by the night workers and telegraphic com- 
munications were immediately resumed. Detectives 
worked on the case for a long while afterwards but 
failed to trace the " mastic " to any particular indi- 
vidual or group of individuals. 

In 1889 the Glasgow dockers asked for an increase 
in wages of two cents an hour. The employers re- 
fused it and hired hundreds of agricultural workers 
to take the dockers' place. The strike was lost and 
the dockers agreed to go back at the old wage pro- 
vided all the agricultural workers without exception 
were discharged. This was granted. The secretary 
of the union called the members' attention to the fact 
that the employers had declared themselves perfectly 
satisfied with the work done by the strike breakers; 
yet those farm boys did not even know how to walk 
the deck of a ship, they would now and then drop 
the goods they carried and two of them could not do 
as much work as one trained docker. " The con- 
clusion/' the secretary added, " is obvious ; do the 
same kind of work ; Ca Canny, take it easy ; only those 
fellows used to fall into the water now and then ; you 
needn't go as far as that." 

For two or three days the dockers practiced Ca 
Canny, after which the employers asked the union's 
secretary to come and confer with them. The men 
were granted the increase they asked for provided 
they abandoned their " canny " methods of work. 

In 1895 a mere threat of sabotage, although it was 
not designated by that name, won a victory for mem- 
bers of the National Syndicate of Railroaders of 
France. The Merlin-Trarieux bill which w T ould 



40 THE NEW UNIONISM 

have made it illegal for railroad employes to join a 
syndicate was introduced in parliament. The rail- 
roaders met to discuss the question of organizing a 
nation-wide strike in response to that proposed en- 
croachment upon their liberties. Guerard, then sec- 
retary of the National Syndicate, delivered on June 
23 an address which caused much excitement in the 
press and parliament and in which he declared that the 
railroaders would not stop at anything to accom- 
plish their purpose. " With two cents worth of a 
certain stuff, used by one who knows, a locomotive can 
be made absolutely useless." 

At the confederal congress held in Toulouse in 
| 1897, Emile Pouget gave currency to the word sabot- 
age and advocated it in a rather sensational fashion. 
The prefect of the Seine, M. de Selves, had refused 
to delegates from the Syndicate of Municipal Work- 
ers the leave of absence they asked for in order to 
attend the congress. A resolution was offered at the 
first session of the congress protesting against the 
prefect's attitude. Pouget rose to oppose the passing 
of that resolution. He said : 

We would gain more by doing something definite than by 
merely protesting; instead of submitting to our rulers' 
whims, we should return blow for blow; we should give one 
kick for every slap. Remember the fear which was struck 
into the capitalists' heart when our comrade Guerard told 
us how a worker at an expense of two cents could prevent a 
fast train, even with a double header, from pulling out of a 
station. I present the following substitute for the reso- 
lution before the house : 

"The congress realizing that it is futile to blame the gov- 
ernment, which is only discharging its duties when it tight- 



DIRECT ACTION: II. SABOTAGE 41 

ens the screws on the workers, directs the municipal work- 
ers to commit depredations to the extent of 100,000 francs 
in the various services of the City of Paris in order to repay 
M. de Selves for his veto." 

The congress voted down Pouget's motion but ap- 
pointed a committee on sabotage and boycott whose 
report was adopted unanimously even by the rather 
conservative delegates of the Federation du Livre 
(Printing Trades). 

Our meeting, the report read, always adjourns with shouts 
of " Hurrah for the social revolution ! " but, that is just a 
noise which is never followed by concrete action. Likewise 
congresses have always affirmed their revolutionary spirit 
but have never pointed out any practical means for passing 
from words to action. The only revolutionary weapon 
which workers have been advised to use is the strike . . . 
but there are other weapons . . . the boycott is powerless 
in many cases as, for instance, against a manufacturer. 
. . . We must therefore resort to other methods, among 
others to sabotage. 

The report went on to explain Ca Canny methods 
as used by the English dockers, and finally defined 
sabotage and described its various applications : 

We are aware that our exploiters always take advantage, 
in order to make our slavery worse, of the times when it is 
most difficult for us to resist their encroachments through a 
partial strike. ... By the use of sabotage, conditions are 
entirely changed; the workers are in a position to fight 
back ; they are no longer at the mercy of the capitalist ; they 
are no longer the soft clay he can mold to suit himself; 
they have at their command a means to show their manhood 
and to prove to their oppressor that they still are men. 

Sabotage is not as new as it would appear to be; it has 



42 THE NEW UNIONISM 

always been used by the workers but without any system. 
They have always decreased their output instinctively when 
their master has shown himself more exacting; they have 
unconsciously adopted the motto : bad work for bad pay. 

That form of sabotage is probably responsible for the 
substitution of piece work for day work . . . but sabotage 
can be and should be used even by piece workers ... by 
letting it affect the quality not the quantity of the goods 
turned out. Thus the worker will not only avoid giving to 
the employer more of his strength than he is paid for but 
he will also hit the employer through his dissatisfied cus- 
tomers. . . . When the workers are using machinery be- 
longing to their employer they can practice sabotage not 
only on the goods but on the machine as well. . . . 

The committee on boycott and sabotage presented 
the following resolution : 

Resolved, That whenever there arises between employers 
and workers a conflict due, either to the employers' exac- 
tions or to the workers' initiative, and a strike does not pro- 
duce results satisfactory to the workers, the workers shall 
use boycott or sabotage or both according to the rules laid 
down in this report. 

The resolution was passed unanimously. 

At the Kennes congress in 1898 many delegates re- 
ported on the results which their syndicates or feder- 
ations had obtained through sabotage. The delegate 
of the Cooks' Federation was especially applauded 
when he related humorously how a famous Paris res- 
taurant had been crippled when every man in the 
kitchen spent an afternoon cooking bricks, while the 
kitchen clock and other pieces of furniture were bak- 
ing in the oven. 

At the Paris congress in 1900 a few dissenting 



DIRECT ACTION. II. SABOTAGE 43 

voices were heard in the discussion relative to sabotage. 
Millerand was then minister of commerce and many 
militants in the ranks of labor endeavored to pave 
their own way to official positions loj preaching " mod- 
eration " and " good behavior." The chairman of 
the congress rose to say that he considered sabotage 
as " detrimental to the interests of the workers and as 
below their dignity." The conservative individual, 
who was soon afterwards appointed receiver of taxes 
in Bordeaux, selected as reporter of the commission 
on boycott and sabotage a delegate opposed to sa- 
botage. In spite of all, sabotage was once more en- 
dorsed by 117 votes against seventy-six. 

We may distinguish three forms of sabotage : 

1. Active sabotage which consists in the damaging 
of goods or machinery. 

2. Open-mouthed sabotage beneficial to the ulti- 
mate consumer and which consists in exposing or de- 
feating fraudulent commercial practices. 

3. Obstructionism or passive sabotage which con- 
sists in carrying out orders literally, regardless of 
consequences. 

On the subject of violent sabotage we read in the 
Bulletin of the Montpellier Labor Exchange for 
1900: 

If you are an engineer you can with two cents worth of 
powdered stone or a pinch of sand, stall your machine, 
cause a loss of time or make expensive repairs necessary. 
If you are a joiner or woodworker what is simpler than to 
ruin furniture without your boss noticing it, and thereby 
drive his customers away? A garment worker can easily 
spoil a suit or a bolt of cloth; if you are working in a de- 
partment store a few spots on a fabric cause it to be sold for 



U THE NEW UNIONISM 

next to nothing; a grocery clerk, by packing up goods care- 
lessly, brings about a smash up ; in the woolen or the haber- 
dashery trade a few drops of acid on the goods you are 
wrapping will make a customer furious ... an agricul- 
tural laborer may sow bad seed in wheat fields, etc. 

When the Paris barber shop assistants were fighting 
for a weekly rest and shorter hours (from 1902 to 
1906) they resorted to what was called " badigeon- 
nage " literally, smearing up. They filled with caus- 
tic an eggshell whose contents had been extracted, 
sealed it with gutted candle wax and in the middle 
of the night went to throw it against their employer's 
shop front. Out of 2300 barber shops some 2000 
were treated by that process. UOuvrier Coiffeur, 
official organ of the Federation of Barbers estimates 
the losses incurred by boss barbers due to badigeon- 
nage at 200,000 francs. The barbers won the weekly 
rest long before parliament passed a law making it 
compulsory in every trade. 

Haywood describes as follows some of the sabotage 
methods favored by the French railroaders during 
their great strike (which, however, was broken when 
Briand called every railroad worker under the flag)^ 

Before I left that country, there were 50,000 tons of 
freight piled up at Havre, and a proportionally large 
amount at every other seaport town. This freight the rail- 
roaders would not move. They did not move at first, and 
when they did it was in this way : they would load a train- 
load of freight for Paris and by some mistake it would be 
billed through to Lyons, and when the freight was found 
at Lyons, instead of being sent to the consignee at Paris it 
was carried straight through the town on to Bayonne or 
Marseilles or some other place — to any place but where it 



DIEECT ACTION: II. SABOTAGE 45 

properly belonged. Perishable freight was taken out by the 
trainload and sidetracked. The condition became such that 
the merchants themselves were compelled to send their 
agents down into the depots to look up their consignments 
of freight — and with very little assurance of finding it at 
all. That this was the systematic work of the railroaders 
there is no question, because a package addressed to Merle, 
one of the editors of La Guerre Sociale, was marked with an 
inscription on the corner, " Sabotagers please note address." 
This package went through post haste. It worked so well 
that some of the merchants began using the name of La 
Guerre Sociale to have their packages immediately delivered. 
It was necessary for the managers of the paper to threaten 
to sue them unless they refrained from using the name of the 
paper for railroad purposes. Nearly all the workers have 
been reinstated at the present time on the railroads of 
France. 

During the strike of the Hotel Workers in this 
country a few striking cooks went back to work with 
the strike breakers for the purpose of spoiling certain 
dishes, mixing caustic potash or powdered soap with 
the soup, staining piles of linen with catsup, dipping 
the ends of forks in crude oil or breaking expensive 
crockery. Some of their sympathizers visited at 
night the best patronized restaurants, dropping on the 
floor little glass capsules known as " stink pots " 
which, when broken emit the most objectionable 
odors. 

In its issue for May 21, 1905, La Voix du Peuple, 
official organ of the C. G. T., pointed out that a walk- 
out of all the workers was insufficient to cripple an 
establishment, as long as all the machinery was left 
in perfect condition. Strike breakers could fill the 
places left by the strikers and within a few hours the 



46 THE NEW UNIONISM 

mill or factory would again be running full blast 
Even a complete lack of strike breakers will not in- 
sure the strikers victory ; for in several cases the Gov- 
ernment has placed enlisted soldiers at the disposal of 
employers. The Voix du Peuple said : 

The first thing to do before going out on strike is to 
cripple all the machinery. Then the contest is even be- 
tween employer and worker, for the cessation of work 
really stops all life in the capitalists' camp. Are bakery 
workers planning to go on strike? Let them pour in the 
ovens a few pints of petroleum or of any other greasy or 
pungent matter. After that soldiers or scabs may come and 
bake bread. The smell will not come out of the tiles for 
three months. Is a strike in sight in steel mills? Pour 
sand or emery into the oil cups. 

In his pamphlet on Syndicalism and the Railroads, 
A. Renault gives the same advice to railroaders : 

We must select among the expert workers a few com- 
rades who, knowing every detail of the machinery, will find 
the weak spots where an effective blow can be struck while 
avoiding all stupid destruction of material. 

In 1908, the Lyons motormen and conductors 
poured concrete into every switch of the street rail- 
way before going on strike; the same year the em- 
ployes of a railroad line in the south of France cut 
off all the telegraph and signal wires and removed 
the spigots of all the water tanks. 

In Philadelphia, garment workers modified all the 
patterns in their shops before walking out, thus mak- 
ing it impossible for " scabs " to complete the jobs 
they had left unfinished. 

In 1909, a confidential circular was sent out to 






DIRECT ACTION: II. SABOTAGE 47 

all the Post Office, Telegraph and Telephone em- 
ployes of France ordering them to " sabotage " tele- 
graph and telephone wires during the night of June 1 
as a protest against the discharge of 650 post office 
employes. 

The circular explained how to cut off live wires 
without running the risk of being electrocuted and 
emphasized the point that signal wires should never 
be tampered with so as not to cause catastrophes on 
the railroads. The report sent in by one of the se- 
cret sabotage committees will give the measure of the 
" saboteurs' " activity : 

Seventh report of the secret revolutionary groups of 
Joinville and affiliated branches; list of telegraph and tele- 
phone wires cut off as a protest against the arrest of Com- 
rade Ingweiler, the prosecution of the Bi-Metal Workers 
and the sentences imposed on July 25, 1910: 

July 8 to 25, Montesson, Vesinet and Pont du 

Pecq district 78 lines 

July 25, Melun to Montgeron 32 " 

July 25, Corbeil to Draveil 24 " 

July 28, P. L. M. lines 87 " 

Total 221 lines 

Lines cut off according to 6 previous reports. . . . 574 " 

795 lines 

Sebastien Faure and Pouget delivered recently on 
the subject of " technical instruction as revolution's \ 
handmaid " two addresses from which we quote the 
following extracts : 

The electrical industry, is one of the most important in- 
dustries, as an interruption in the current means a lack of 



'48 THE NEW UNIONISM 

light and power in factories; it also means a reduction in 
the means of transportation and a stoppage of the tele- 
graph and telephone systems. 

How can the power be cut off? By curtailing in the 
mine the output of the coal necessary for feeding the ma- 
chinery or stopping the coal cars on their way to the elec- 
trical plants. If the fuel reaches its destination what is 
simpler than to set the pockets on fire and have the coal 
burn in the yards instead of the furnaces? It is child's 
play to put out of work the elevators and other automatic 
devices which carry coal to the fireroom. 

To put boilers out of order use explosives or silicates or a 
plain glass bottle which thrown on the glowing coals hinders 
the combustion and clogs up the smoke exhausts. You can 
also use acids to corrode boiler tubes; acid fumes will ruin 
cylinders and piston rods. A small quantity of some cor- 
rosive substance, a handful of emery will be the end of oil 
cups. When it comes to dynamos or transformers, short 
circuits and inversion of poles can be easily managed. 
Underground cables can be destroyed by fire, water or ex- 
plosives, etc., etc. 

A form of sabotage which is beneficial to the con- 
sumer is called in French " la houche ouverte," the 
open mouth. In the practice of it, the workers, re- 
gardless of what their trade or occupation may be, 
refrain from any misrepresentation. Not only must 
they answer truthfully all questions asked by custo- 
mers but they must volunteer all information which 
the customer should possess concerning the actual 
quality or quantity of the goods he purchases. 

In 1908 the Paris Cooks' Syndicate called the pub- 
lic's attention to an incident which had taken place in 
one of the best known restaurants. On June 1, a 
chef had been dismissed for refusing to cook meat 
so decayed that it constituted positive danger to the 



DIEECT ACTION: II. SABOTAGE 49 

patrons' health. Not only did the man lose his posi- 
tion but he was blacklisted as well. The cooks de- 
cided then and there to acquaint the public by all 
available means with the frauds they had to practice 
in obedience to their employers' orders. 

They revealed how cray fish soup (bisque) was 
made not of crayfish meat but of crayfish and lob- 
ster shells left on plates, which were finely powdered 
and sprayed with carmine; deer steak was made of 
plain beef steeped over night in various condiments ; 
in some houses glasses, forks, spoons and knives were 
wiped off with the soiled napkins, etc. 

Workers employed in the Paris subway practiced 
open-mouthed sabotage when they allowed themselves 
to be interviewed in regard to frauds in building ma- 
terials likely to result in serious accidents. Grocery 
clerks had posters affixed to billboards explaining to 
housewives how they were cheated and made to pur- 
chase inferior substitutes; apothecary clerks revealed 
the thievish way in which they were directed to fill 
prescriptions, substituting cheap equivalents for high- 
priced chemicals, or leaving the latter out altogether. 

Two years ago the Bank Clerks Congress decided 
to gather all possible evidence of crooked dealings 
taking place in various financial establishments and 
to keep that incriminating material on file for publi- 
cation whenever they would wage a fight for better 
conditions. 

Besides denouncing abuses, workers are instructed 
to correct them whenever this is within their power. 
Wineshop workers must refuse to dilute the wines> 



BO THE NEW, UNIONISM 

cooks must use so much margarine that it becomes 
as expensive as genuine butter, grocery clerks must 
never shortweight the customers, apothecary clerks 
are not to recommend expensive proprietary drugs 
when an inexpensive substitute would do as well, nor 
must they omit when filling prescriptions any high- 
priced but necessary ingredient whose cost is borne by 
their employer. 

Obstructionism is a form of sabotage which has been 
practiced more frequently by railroaders than by any 
other class of workers. It was first applied by Aus- 
trian station masters to such good effect that the em- 
ployes soon saw the advantage of imitating their 
superiors. In 1887 a railroad coupler was caught be- 
tween two freight cars and terribly mutilated. The 
officials of the road disciplined the station master as 
some of the rules relative to coupling had not been 
enforced. Telegraph orders were dispatched to all sta- 
tion masters calling their attention to the various reg- 
ulations the observance of which they were supposed 
to insure. 

The station masters obeyed the order. The result 
was that after twenty-four hours, trains were stalled 
everywhere and freight was piling up in stations. 
Something had to be done. The governing board of 
every road hastened to free the station masters from 
all responsibility in the case of accident due to neglect 
of certain minor rules. 

In 1905 obstruction was one of the most effective 
weapons used in Italy by the striking railroaders. 
Here are some of the scenes described by newspaper 
reporters. This took place in a Rome station : 



DIKECT ACTION: II. SABOTAGE 51 

According to regulations ticket windows must be open 
thirty minutes and closed five minutes before the departure 
of a train. The wicket is opened. A gentleman offers a 
ten lire piece in payment for a ticket worth four lire 
fifty. The ticket agent reads to him an article of the regu- 
lations which requests passengers to present the exact 
amount of their fare. As no change is made hardly thirty 
tickets have been sold within the regulation time. The 
wicket is closed five minutes before train time with a mob 
of would-be passengers who cannot pass the gates for lack 
of tickets. Don't imagine, however, that those who secured 
transportation are much better off. They are within the 
cars but the train does not move. According to regulations 
a lot of switching has been done which has stalled several 
trains 500 meters away. Some passengers, furious, leave 
the cars and start to walk to the station. Employes in 
strict obedience of regulations proffer formal charges 
against them. 

We are now in Milan : A train has been assembled after 
an hour and a half's work. The inspector notices in the 
middle of the train an old ramshackle car. "Car out of 
order ! " and the train is cut in two so as to permit the re- 
moval of the objectionable vehicle. 

In Rome: An engineer is ordered to take his locomotive 
to the round-house. He refuses, for the three tail lights 
prescribed by regulation are missing. Lamps are sent 
for. The stock clerk refuses to deliver them without a 
formal order signed by the station master. . . . 

A traveler presents a pass at the office window. 

"Are you Mr. So and So?" 

"lam." 

" Can you prove your identity through any official docu- 
ments?" 

" No ! " 

" Then I cannot 0. K. your pass unless, according to the 
regulations, you bring two witnesses." 

In Civita Vecchia: An engineer decides a few minutes 
before train time to have the coal in his engine's tender 



52 THE NEW UNIONISM 

•weighed, according to regulations, then being in doubt as to 
the condition of his manometer, he asks, according to regu- 
lations, the technical chief of the railroad station to come 
and confer with him. Before entering the cab he makes 
sure that cars with bumpers alternate with bumperless cars 
and that no oiler, coupler or lamp tender is at work in, 
under or on the cars ; finally he notices that the steam pres- 
sure is only four and according to regulations no train must 
pull out of a station until the hand of the manometer reg- 
isters a pressure of five. ... At the next station the bag- 
gage master detains the train for twenty-five minutes while 
applying rule No. 739 which requests him to check person- 
ally every piece of baggage before it is loaded on his car. 

The various syndicalist writers justify the first 
variety of sabotage by assimilating labor, as capi- 
talist economists are fond of doing, to ordinary mer- 
chandise. When economic conditions compel or en- 
able dealers to raise the cost of merchandise they have 
their choice of two methods. In the case of luxuries 
they simply demand more for the same quality or 
quantity of goods; in the case of necessaries of life 
they either sell the same amount and grade at a higher 
price or, if consumers show themselves restive, they 
sell an inferior grade and a smaller quantity, some- 
times concealed through clever packing, for the same 
amount of money. 

If labor is a merchandise sold in the open market, 
workers compelled or enabled by economic conditions 
to raise their prices can demand more money in ex- 
change for their goods, or, if employers show unwill- 
ingness to, give more money for the same amount of 
labor, they may give an inferior kind of labor for the 
same amount of money. 






DIEECT ACTION: II. SABOTAGE 53 

Employers who see their machinery deteriorate rap- 
idly and who cannot dispose of damaged goods on 
satisfactory terms may, after a while, spend on sal- 
aries the money wasted on repairs or on merchandise 
which has to be taken back. 

Sabotage of the open-mouthed type being always 
beneficial to the ultimate consumer requires no apolo- 
gies. 

As far as obstruction goes every lawyer handling la- 
bor accident cases in court knows that very few work- 
ers or workers' families suing employers for damages 
ever recover a cent as the victim is usually found to 
have violated some rule, the strict observance of which 
would have probably cost him his position. No man 
who insisted on coupling cars as railroad regulations 
prescribe it, that is with a stick of wood of a certain 
length, would ever acquire the speed which is ex- 
pected of such a worker. Should he lose a hand while 
doing the coupling in a speedy and efficient way, 
that is without a stick, he cannot recover damages. 

Since the workers by violating rules not only save 
money for their employers but outlaw themselves in 
case of accident, it is only natural that in case of 
strike they should not violate regulations at their own 
physical and financial risk. 

We quote from an editorial in The Industrial 
Worker (Spokane, Wash.) the following extracts 
which present very forcibly the New Unionist view 
of the ethics of sabotage : 

Actions which might be classed as sabotage are used by 
the different exploiting and professional classes. 

The truck farmer packs his largest fruits and vegetables 



54 THE NEW UNIONISM 

upon the top layer. The merchant sells inferior articles as 
" something just as good." The doctor gives " bread pills " 
or other harmless concoctions in cases where the symptoms 
are puzzling. The builder uses poorer material than de- 
manded in the specifications. The manufacturer adulterates 
foodstuffs and clothing. All these are for the purpose of 
gaining more profits. 

Carloads of potatoes were destroyed in Illinois recently; 
cotton was burned in the southern States; coffee was de- 
stroyed by the Brazilian planters; barge loads of onions 
were dumped overboard in California; apples are left to rot 
on the trees of whole orchards in Washington; and hun- 
dreds of tons of foodstuffs are held in cold storage until 
rendered unfit for consumption. All to raise prices. 

Yet it is exploiters of this kind who are loudest in con- 
demnation of sabotage when it is used to benefit the work- 
ers. 

Some forms of capitalist sabotage are legalized, others 
are not. v But whether or not the various practices are sanc- 
tioned by law, it is evident that they are more harmful to 
society as a whole than is the sabotage of the workers. 

Capitalists cause imperfect dams to be constructed, and 
devastating floods sweep whole sections of the country. 
They have faulty bridges erected, and wrecks cause great 
loss of life. They sell steamer tickets, promising absolute 
security, and sabotage the life saving equipment to the 
point where hundreds are murdered, as witness the Titanic. 

The General Slocum disaster is an example of capitalist 
sabotage on the life preservers. The Iroquois theater fire is 
an example of sabotage by exploiters who assured the pub- 
lic that the fire-curtain was made of asbestos. The cases 
could be multiplied indefinitely. 

These capitalist murderers constitute themselves the men- 
tors of the morals of those slaves who " have nothing to lose 
but their chains." Only fools will take their ethics from 
such knaves. Capitalist opposition to sabotage is one of its 
highest recommendations. 

Capitalist sabotage aims to benefit a small group of non- 



DIRECT ACTION: II. SABOTAGE 55 

producers. Working class sabotage seeks to help the wage 
working class at the expense of parasites. 

The frank position of the class conscious worker is that 
capitalist sabotage is wrong because it harms the workers; 
working class sabotage is right because it aids the workers. 

Sabotage is a direct application of the idea that property 
has no rights that its creators are bound to respect. Espe- 
cially is this true when the creators of the wealth of the 
world are in hunger and want amid the abundance they 
have produced, while the idle few have all the good things 
of life. 

The open advocacy of sabotage and its widespread use is 
a true reflection of economic conditions. The current ethical 
code, with all existing laws and institutions, is based upon 
private property in production. Why expect those who 
have no stake in society, as it is now constituted, to continue 
to contribute to its support? 



CHAPTER J.t> 

THE NEW UNIONISM AND THE INTELLECTUALS! 

Leaving aside China, where until recently the pos- 
session of a literary degree was the only requisite for 
the obtainment of any governmental position, we must 
concede that intellectuals the world over have assumed 
in the conduct of the people's affairs an importance 
in no way commensurate with their competence. 
Parliaments are filled with lawyers whose only quali- 
fication for representing a constituency is neither a 
perfect knowledge of the voters' needs nor special 
training in economics, but mere fluency of speech. 

In Europe, especially in the Latin countries, many 
physicians and teachers share with lawyers the 
profitable privilege of speaking in behalf of the 
masses. Radical parties have been as careless as 
conservative parties in the choice of their representa- 
tives, being obscurely aware that a man sent to par- 
liament by an artificial geographical division could do 
little good or little harm, whoever he was, for the 
manifold interests of the people inhabiting the re- 
gion. In Italy a physician managed to have him- 
self elected to parliament on the anti-parliamentary 
platform of syndicalism. Finally " radical " lawyers 
all over the world reap a bountiful harvest by mana- 
ging the legal end of labor disputes and taking advan- 

56 



THE INTELLECTUALS 57 

tage of their clients' ignorance when rendering their 
bills. The profits made by those friends of the 
worker can be easily estimated when we bear in mind 
that certain labor groups with several thousand mem- 
bers pay their legal adviser a fee of fifty cents per 
member ; a successful radical lawyer often earns more 
than a successful corporation lawyer; and he can al- 
ways blame unfair capitalist magistrates for the cases 
he loses. 

A realization of the sordid and insincere role played 
by too many intellectuals in labor politics has finally 
aroused among the workers an instinctive distrust and 
scorn of whoever is not a manual worker. This re- 
action is naturally bound to carry the workers a little 
too far and to cause them to ostracize unjustly many 
men from the liberal professions who are also wage 
slaves and as ruthlessly exploited as any mill hand 
ever was. For we would oppose to the definition 
of a worker by the French " manualist ' T Tolain : 
" A man who works with his hands/' Liebknecht's 
definition, " A man who does not live from the labor 
of another." 

Even in France, the paradise of " friends of labor/' 
the reaction of the workers against the professional 
" thinker " is nothing new. When the Paris section 
of the International was organized in 1865 many in- 
tellectuals applied for membership, among them 
Henri Martin, the historian, Gustave Chaudey, who 
had collaborated with Proudhon, Corbon, former vice- 
president of the 1848 Constituante and Jules Simon. 
Two years later in 1867, one of the burning questions 
which the International had to consider at its Lau- 



58 THE NEW UNIONISM 

sanne congress, was the part which " intellectuals 
and capitalists " should be allowed to play in the 
movement. The French delegates, Fribourg and 
Tolain, offered a motion according to which, while 
intellectuals were ^welcome as members of the Inter- 
national, none but manual workers should be allowed 
v to participate in the work of congresses. Fribourg 
said: 

It might happen some day that the workers' congress 
would be made up almost entirely of economists, journal- 
ists, lawyers, employers, etc., which would be a ridiculous 
state of affairs, likely to ruin the International. 

Tolain added: 

We bear no ill will to anyone, but under the present condi- 
tions we must consider as our enemies every member of a 
class which enjoys special privileges on account of its 
wealth or its diplomas. We the workers have been criticised 
often enough for entrusting others with the care of our sal- 
vation, for relying over much upon the state. We are no 
longer willing to incur that criticism; the workers will take 
care of themselves and ask for no one's protection. 

The French motion was defeated and the English 
and Swiss motion was passed : " Intellectual work- 
ers/' it said in part, " are quite as deserving and can 
prove as deep a devotion to the cause as manual work- 
ers." 

Reformists of all hues have always needed and 
desired greatly the help of intellectual allies. Good 
speakers and skilled writers can do much to convince 
the capitalists of the necessity of " granting " re- 
forms to the workers. They Qm §ith§r merely m- 



AND THE INTELLECTUALS 59 

cite their sympathy or, by showing them how certain 
forms of the workers' exploitation can be injurious 
to the health or the prosperity of the community, 
strike fear into their heart. 

Thus intellectuals act as unofficial ambassadors be- 
tween workers and employers or between the worker 
and the state or government. Socialists, even of an 
advanced type are bound to feel a debt of gratitude 
to such persons as G. B. Shaw, H. G. Wells, John 
Galsworthy, Anatole France, Maxim Gorky, Haupt- 
mann, Ada Negri and Jack London, who, on one hand 
picture vividly the sufferings of the workers and on 
the other dissipate popular misconceptions of social- 
ism and make radical theories clearer and more ac- 
ceptable to the conservative reader. 

As long as the workers, uncultured and inarticu- 
late, were pleading for the capitalist's mercy, the in- 
tellectual in parliament, in journalism, in literature, 
in art, was, so to speak, labor's social secretary. Di- 
rect actionists, however, can well scorn such allies 
while recognizing the amount of valuable pioneer 
work they once accomplished. The many intellectu- 
als who, in spite of the diminished prestige which 
will be their share, have been attracted to the syndi- 
calist movement, express themselves on this point 
in unmistakable terms. Sorel says : 

Professional intellectuals, that is, those who make it a 
business to think for other classes which may remain un- 
cultured, can only lead a civilization to its ruin, for their 
thought is never refreshed at the live fount of productive 
activity. The intellectual feudalism admired by Renan is 
destructive of every idea of justice, for it reduces the pro- 



r 60 THE NEW UNIONISM 

ducer to the rank of a vassal and submits civil society to a 
foreign rule. 

The democracy of property holders clings with the energy 
of despair to the doctrine of special aptitude and does its 
best to exploit the superstitious respect which the masses 
have for knowledge. ... It multiplies degrees and tries to 
make a mandarin out of the most insignificant man of let- 
ters; the parasites as a class profess an unbounded admira- 
tion for science ... they act as heralds for the high priests 
of science, ask for big pensions for them and hope by such 
means to conquer the respect of simple people, besides de- 
riving therefrom large personal profits. . . . Experience 
shows, however, that great managerial qualities are not 
exceptional and are frequently found among manual work- 
ers. ... In France the intellectuals claim that their place 
is in parliament and that in case of victory dictatorial pow- 
ers should be conferred upon them as their due. It is 
against this parliamentary dictatorship of the people that 
syndicalists protest. . . . 

The true calling of the intellectuals seems to be the ex- 
ploitation of politics; the calling of the politician is very 
similar to that of the prostitute and does not require any 
industrial ability. Do not talk to those people of removing 
the traditional forms of state. . . . They want to convince 
the worker that it is his interest to elect them into power 
and that he should accept the theory of special aptitudes 
which places the workers under the direction of the pol- 
iticians. 

Edouard Berth deplores the importance which in- 
tellectuals attach to " talk," at times when action of 
the most energetic type would be the only thing 
likely to bring about results. 

The intellectual considers fighting as absurd when parley- 
ing is so very easy; on the thought market where he acts as 
curb broker, the sentiment of honor is as little appreciated 
as it is on the stock exchange; an intellectual is a trader 



AND THE INTELLECTUALS 61 

and you cannot expect from him warlike heroism. We 
know that traders and intellectuals take the same attitude 
towards strikes as they take towards war. In the course of 
every strike the papers are full of careful statistics of the 
workers' losses. . . • Arbitration, systematized, even com- 
pulsory, the intellectuals say, would be preferable. . . . In- 
tellectuals are great social pacifists. 

Enrico Leone demands the abolition of the privi- 
leged class called the intellectual class. Democracy 
professes to open careers to merit ; in reality it opens 
them to capacity, due to birth, to inherited property 
or culture, the monopolies of a class. He points out 
the significant fact that rulers receive even from 
democratic countries degrees and titles without un- 
dergoing any examinations. " The socialism of the 
intellectuals would favor the continuance of this 
privilege; it would establish a kind of mandarin 
hierarchy in which everyone would receive positions 
according to the diplomas he possessed." 

Leone believes with Sorel that a majority of the 
intellectuals are useless ; they are unproductive work- 
ers, political and administrative officials employed by 
the State, members of the liberal professions, more 
or less dependent on the capitalist class or, at best, 
students of art and science, which should not be the 
monopoly of a class but accessible to all classes. 
The intellectuals are steadily claiming more than 
their share. Every new idea which permeates the 
working masses is credited to them and " instead of 
remaining faithful soldiers in the rank like volun- 
teers in a war of independence, the intellectuals de- 
mand the epaulets of captains." 



62 THE NEW UNIONISM 

What would become of art and science in the in- 
dustrial commonwealth brought into being by the 
victory of the New Unionism ? Many fighters in the 
ranks of the New Unionism refuse even to consider 
the question or dodge the issue by declaring that 
artists and scientists could only belong to the move- 
ment as members of some industrial union. This is 
too simple a way of disposing of art and sciences 
which are essential elements of any human civiliza- 
tion and would be the only means of individual ex- 
pression after the competitive struggle was elimi- 
nated. 

The " sportive " instinct, a desire to excel, linked 
in no way with the idea of remuneration could not 
nor should be repressed. Many New Unionists 
realize that the results of such activity as would be 
directed along art channels by the desire to excel 
would be as beneficial to mankind as the products of 
any of the so-called useful trades. Only science and 
art would first have to undergo a thorough trans- 
formation. For the art of to-day is, according to 
Sorel's words, " a mere residuum bequeathed to us 
by an aristocratic society." If the artist with his 
capricious disposition is almost completely the oppo- 
site of the worker " it is because the habits of life of 
the modern artist formed in imitation of the life of a 
carousing aristocracy are in no way essential and 
must be blamed upon a tradition which has been 
fatal to many men of genius." 

To Sorel the art of the future appears as " an. 
adornment of life which will demonstrate the neces- 
sity of a careful, conscientious, skilled execution. 



AND THE INTELLECTUALS 63 

. . . the means through which the merge of intel- 
lectual labor with manual labor will become patent to 
the workers." 

The progress of art is not dependent upon the ex- 
istence of a privileged artist class. We do not even 
know the names of the great artists of the Gothic 
period. Among the obscure stonecutters who carved 
statues for the great cathedrals there were men of 
considerable talent who apparently never emerged 
from the anonymous masses of the workers; they 
nevertheless produced masterpieces. 

A striving for perfection, for " the highest form 
of production," will manifest itself regardless of any 
personal, concrete, immediate and adequate return 
and will insure the progress of the world. 

Thus speak the philosophers and theorists of the 
New Unionism. It is interesting to note how little 
their conclusions and forecasts differ from those of 
practical workers like Pouget and Pataud. These 
two powerful leaders of the " extremists " in the 
General Confederation of Labor gave a good deal of 
thought to the " intellectual question " and the fol- 
lowing is a resume of their statements on the sub- 
ject: 

Many intellectuals, Pouget and Pataud think, will greet 
with joy the dawn of the new era. Among them there will 
be some for whom the great change will mean a distinct 
loss, social or financial. Even those, however, will welcome 
the new order, for their talent is stifled in a capitalist so- 
ciety. The material profit they derive from it could not 
compensate them for the disgust with which their bourgeois 
environment fills them. 

Men of the very first rank in literature and science, re- 



64 THE NEW UNIONISM 

tainers of the capitalist system, despise it so heartily that its 
downfall will seem to them like a deliverance. Their con- 
tribution to the constructive work of the post-revolutionary 
period will be the reorganization of the educational system 
and of the liberal professions. 

Mere knowledge will not constitute a claim to a larger 
remuneration. Whoever accumulates knowledge is indebted 
for its acquisition to his teachers, to the discoveries made by 
the preceding generations, in a word to his total environ- 
ment. Furthermore all classes of men are equally indis- 
pensable to one another and a physician is neither more nor 
less necessary to bakers, masons and sewer diggers than 
bakers, masons and sewer diggers are to a physician. While 
some professional men may find themselves poorer in social 
prestige, they will from a strictly professional point of view 
find themselves overwealthy. 

Scientific organizations will have at their disposal a mag- 
nificent equipment, perfect laboratories and all that is nec- 
essary for valuable experimentation. 

Literary and dramatic works will be produced by unions 
of writers, journalists, etc. The daily newspaper will of 
course assume an entirely new shape and may be super- 
seded by contrivances for the distribution of illustrated 
news. Subscriptions to the daily news supply shall be paid 
for by means of "luxury tickets." Printers' associations 
will undertake the publication of novels, poems, books of 
history or travel of evident value. In doubtful cases, the 
author himself would have to guarantee the initial expense 
by paying a certain amount in "luxury tickets." Should 
his writings prove a success, he might be excused from tak- 
ing any part in the work of social production for certain 
periods of time, thus being able to devote himself entirely 
to the preparation of his next masterpiece, etc. 

There is no doubt in the writer's mind that the 
complete elimination of the arts from the fighting 
methods of the New Unionism will prove a boon for 



AND THE INTELLECTUALS 65 

the arts. The majority of radicals debase art as 
ruthlessly as conservatives do by making it the hand- 
maid of their theories. They profess infinite scorn 
for the artist who does not take any form of the class 
struggle as an inspiration for his work, thus placing 
quite a severe limitation upon symphonic composers 
and architects, among others. 

It is pleasant to record that the Ghent workers 
have built a studio for young Van Biesbroeck, a 
sculptor whose work reflects the struggles of laboring 
Belgium, and that the Genoa dockers have pur- 
chased out of the funds of their union The Long- 
shoreman by Constantin Meunier. The only dis- 
turbing feature about it is that the Ghent and Genoa 
workers were admiring not so much the two sculp- 
tors' talent as the subjects of their statues — modern 
workingmen — that is, types which true revolution- 
ists wish, not to perpetuate but to do away with 
through a better social adjustment. 

Thus prejudiced radicals have encouraged the 
gaudiest type of illustrations, the crudest sculpture, 
the talkiest plays, the most incredible fiction, the 
least poetic doggerel for the sake of the radical 
tendencies those productions expressed or seemed to 
express. The unfortunate artist escapes the capi- 
talist tyranny to fall a victim to the radical's dis- 
torted sense of art. No one can tell what fate is re- 
served to pure art and pure science when the New 
Unionism triumphs. At least while it is struggling 
to gain a foothold it will not enslave the intellect. 

Much as New Unionists, however, are justified in 
ignoring the intellectuals, they should not adopt too 



66 THE NEW UNIONISM 

scornful an attitude towards art and science. The 
ideally beautiful and ideally useful will become the 
best incentive in the new system of society and be- 
sides will be more potent than any other force in 
purging the worker's mentality of all the grossness 
and sordidness forced into it by his capitalist masters 
during long years of toil. 



CHAPTEE V; 

THE NEW UNIONISM IN FEANCEI BEVOLUTIONABY 
SYNDICALISM 

Weitees on syndicalism generally state that the 
French Confederation of Labor was the first expo- 
nent of the New Unionism. They overlook the fact 
that the English Chartists formulated almost every 
aim of the New Unionists in the early part of the 19 th 
century. In this country we find the Western Labor 
Union upholding the same principles several years 
before the French Confederation was organized. 

The strike of the American Railway Union in 1894 
is a fair illustration of the New Unionist tactics ap- 
plied to one industry. The Western Federation of 
Miners also conceived the idea of organizing all the 
workers of the mining towns into a single organiza- 
tion, in order to carry on more effectively their fight 
against the mine owners in the various mountain 
States. The Chartist movement, however, collapsed 
very early and it was not until 1909 that the Indus- 
trial Workers of the World whose advent had been 
prepared by the Western Labor Union and the West- 
ern Federation of Miners became an important factor 
in the labor world. 

The French Confederation of Labor or, as it is 
currently designated, the C. G. T. (Confederation 
Generale du Travail) was not organized until 1902 

«7 



GS THE NEW UNIONISM 

but the spirit of New Unionism had begun to mani- 
fest itself in France many years before. 

In March, 1867, on the occasion of the tailors' 
strike, the French section of the International showed 
itself rather hostile to the strikers, explaining its at- 
titude thus : " As the strikers employed in fashion- 
able shops at a high wage refuse to concern themselves 
with the pitiable condition of the workers in the 
ready made clothing shops the International couldn't 
sympathize with them." 

•When in 1869 the Elbceuf woolen workers and in 
1870 the Creusot steel workers, went on strike, many 
unions in different trades showed their spirit of sol- 
idarity by contributing to the strike fund. 

After the Commune, France witnessed a severe re- 
action against labor associations. The National As- 
sembly passed a law penalizing all attempts at or- 
ganizing the workers. It is therefore useless for us to 
review the history of French syndicates before March 
21, 1884, when a law was passed " authorizing all 
workers, laborers or employers to create temporary 
or permanent associations for the defense and study 
of their professional, economic, commercial and agri- 
cultural interests." 

This law merely sanctioned an order of things es- 
tablished in the teeth of ferocious reaction. While 
it recognized the legal existence of the syndicates or 
trade unions, it aimed in reality at damming up 
the revolutionary current in motion among the la- 
boring masses. For as early as the year 1879 the 
Marseilles congress had decided to study the General 
Strike. 



REVOLUTIONARY SYNDICALISM 69 

Various kinds of syndicates or trade unions began 
to spring up all over France and in 1886, the Lyons 
congress approved the organization of the " Federa- 
tion of Syndicates and Corporative Groups of 
France." The new organism was little more, how- 
ever, than an electoral machine for the labor party. 

New combinations of unions were formed in more 
or less open opposition to the Federation's policy. 
In 1887 the Paris municipality placed at the dis- 
posal of the local unions a building where all crafts 
could meet and discuss their common interests and 
which was the first Bourse du Travail or Labor Ex- 
change. A dozen cities or industrial centers fol- 
lowed the example set by the capital. 

Socialists set to work at uniting all the Bourses in 
a common effort. In February, 1892, the Federa- 
tion of Exchanges was officially created and became 
a powerful rival of the Federation of Syndicates. 
At the Marseilles congress in September, 1892, the 
Bourses immediately revealed themselves as militant 
organisms. The congress voted by acclamation a res- 
olution drafted by Aristide Briand and which read in 
part: 

Only a revolution can give us the economic freedom and 
the material welfare demanded by the most elementary prin- 
ciples of natural justice . . .; the workers, however, have 
never derived any advantage from bloody insurrections . . . 
which give the ruling classes an opportunity to drown so- 
cial demands in the workers' blood . . .; among the peace- 
ful and lawful means . . . there is a universal and simul- 
taneous suspension of the producing activity, that is to say 
the general strike. 



70 THE NEW UNIONISM 

The Federation of Syndicates at its next congress 
entered a formal protest against the adoption of such 
a resolution. Encouraged by these differences within 
the ranks of labor, the authorities decided to close the 
Paris Labor Exchange. 

At the Nantes Labor congress held in 1894 the 
Briand motion coming up once more for discussion 
was endorsed by sixty-five votes against thirty-seven 
and the parliamentary section of the congress dom- 
inated by the Guesdists withdrew from the hall. The 
Federation of Syndicates was wiped out by that de- 
feat due to the antipolitical agitation of young Pel- 
loutier. 

To Fernand Pelloutier more than to any other 
leader is due the present revolutionary connotation 
of the word syndicalism. In the course of his short 
life (1867-1901), he showed himself an unremitting 
foe of parliamentary action. In 1897, he coined the 
term which now sums up the methods of New Union- 
ism, " Direct Action." 

Pelloutier held that modern socialism must be 
founded upon an absolute cleavage between classes and 
must give up all hopes of a social regeneration through 
political means. He considered the Labor Exchanges 
as the most perfect medium of expression of the 
workers' desiderata. He wrote : 

We must carry on more methodically and more stub- 
bornly than ever the work of intellectual, administrative and 
technical training necessary to fit a community of free indi- 
viduals for existence. . . . We must demonstrate to the 
workers by a series of experiments conducted in their midst, 
that self-government by themselves is possible and, also, give 



REVOLUTIONARY SYNDICALISM 71 

them weapons against the corrupting suggestions of capital- 
ism, by instructing them as to the necessity of a revolution. 

Fernand Pelloutier did his best to gather the an- 
archists into the syndicates. He showed them how 
•they could carry out practically the social war of 
which they were constantly speaking; those new re- 
cruits taught their coworkers not to shrink from di- 
rect action; thus far the socialists had always shown 
themselves apologetic in regard to strikes; the men 
from " the party of the street " held that strikes were 
mere incidents in the class war ; trade union methods 
became discredited. 

All his life Pelloutier adhered to this militant pol- 
icy. When Millerand came forward with a pro- 
gramme of reforms, Pelloutier attacked savagely what 
he called " the half-baked projects of that self-styled 
socialist." Although suffering from tuberculosis in 
an advanced stage he did not hesitate in the last years 
of his life to court persecution. His book La vie 
ouvriere en France called upon his head governmental 
thunder and he died a pauper in 1901. 

The congress of Limoges, in 1895, saw the establish- 
ment of the first 0. G. T. The syndicates decided 
to form national federations and to unite themselves 
anew in a confederation ; the C. G. T. proceeded im- 
mediately to shut its doors to politicians by declaring 
that it would keep itself aloof from any political af- 
filiation. 

At every succeeding congress — Tours, 1896, Tou- 
louse, 1897 (when a committee on sabotage was first 
appointed and sabotage endorsed by the Confedera- 



n THE NEW UNIONISM 

tion), Rennes, 1898, Paris, 1900, Lyons, 1901 — ef- 
forts were made to unite the Federation of Labor 
Exchanges and the C. G. T. At Montpellier in 1902 
this fusion was accomplished. 

The Montpellier congress appointed twenty-five 
delegates to settle the differences between the two 
Federations. A compromise was reached : The Con- 
federation was to consist of two distinct sections : on 
one side tlje Federation of Trades and Industries, on 
the other the Federation of Exchanges, the aims of 
both sections being harmonized by a confederal com- 
mittee. 

Besides a few modifications of detail the policy of 
the Confederation did not change from 1902? to 1906. 
In 1906 a decision was taken which defined unequivo- 
cally the attitude of the Confederation. Without 
excluding any of the affiliated craft federations the 
Confederation decided at the Amiens congress to ad- 
mit in the future only industrial federations. Thus 
the Confederation pledged itself to a frankly indus- 
trialist policy. 

All shades of opinions, however, are represented in 
the Confederal Committee. Like the French parlia- 
ment it is divided up into a Eight, a Center, a Left 
and an Extreme Left. 

The party of the Right includes the anti-revolution- 
ists and independents, leaders of the Federation of the 
Printing Trade and also the Guesdists, anti-milita- 
ristic and opposed to the General Strike, who lead 
the Federation of Textile workers. The Center is 
made up mostly of railroadmen dominated by 
Jaures' ideas. To the Left belong the Simon pure 



REVOLUTIONARY SYNDICALISM 73 

syndicalists (les purs) led by Pouget, Griffuehles, 
Jouhaux, and the editorial board of La Voix du Peu* 
pie, organ of the C. G. T. Further to the Left, led 
by Yvetot, sit the anti-militarists, whose opinion was 
mirrored by Herve's paper La Guerre Sociale before 
Herve declared himself for parliamentary action. 
Finally there are a few anarchists whose organ is 
Jean Grave's Les Temps Nouveaux. It is the Left 
which has steadily directed the destinies of the Con- 
federation since the fusion of 1902. The revolution- 
ary wing carried two signal victories at the Amiens 
congress in 1906 and at the Marseilles congress in 
1908. 

One thousand syndicates represented at the Amiens 
congress refused to enter into relations with the So- 
cialist party which they considered as altogether too 
conservative ; by 834 votes against thirty-four a reso- 
lution was adopted pledging the Confederation to the 
orthodox syndicalist programme: to bring about 
through the general strike the expropriation of the 
capitalists and to reorganize society upon the basis of 
the syndicate which from a unit of resistance would 
transform itself into an organ of production and dis- 
tribution. 

At the Marseilles congress, 670 syndicates against 
406 pledged the C. G. T. to anti-militarism and to 
rebellion in case of war. 

Then it was that Messrs. Pugliesi-Conti and Paul 
Deschanel endeavored to have the Confederation dis- 
solved as illegal. The government realized that such 
action would have only temporary consequences as 
far as the Confederation was concerned and that, 



U THE NEW UNIONISM 

furthermore, it might precipitate a civil war. And 
the Confederation was left in peace ever afterward. 

The organization of the C. G. T. seems at first 
glance to be extremely complex. The unit of or- 
ganization is the syndicate or craft union. In every 
city and town the various craft unions combine and 
meet in a building placed at their disposal by the 
municipality and called Bourse du Travail or Labor 
Exchange. Certain municipalities, however, have 
attempted to exploit the syndicates for political pur- 
poses and therefore, in order to retain their inde- 
pendence, the syndicates maintain in such cases, be- 
sides a Labor Exchange another organization called 
Union of Syndicates. Both have the same member- 
ship and the same officers; the work of administra- 
tion is carried on at the Exchange ; the work of agita- 
tion at the Union of Syndicates. When the Exchange 
is allowed perfect political freedom by the municipal- 
ity, it is affiliated with the C. G. T. In the contrary 
case it is the Union which is affiliated with the 0. G. T. 
Besides being free employment agencies for their 
members, the Exchanges help workers out of work, 
supply them with free transportation to parts of the 
country where labor is scarce, organize courses in 
technical instruction and give free legal advice. They 
also carry on, when unhampered by the municipality, 
the work of organization and propaganda. 

The Exchanges of the south of Erance have propa- 
gated the syndicalist idea among the agricultural 
workers of the region and organized many syndicates 
of wine growers. The Bourges Exchange organized 
the lumbermen of central France. The Brest Ex- 



REVOLUTIONARY SYNDICALISM 75 

change triumphed over Brittany's stubborn resistance 
to all progress in matters of labor organization. 

The work of the local Exchanges is centralized by 
the Federation of Exchanges. The Federation of 
Syndicates centralizes the work of the craft and in- 
dustrial unions. The industrialist form, however, 
will soon displace all others for, as we mentioned be- 
fore, the C. G. T. while leaving to the older organiza- 
tions their autonomy, no longer admits to its member- 
ship any organization which is not conducted along 
industrial lines. 

The federations of industries are as yet far from 
being of a uniform type. Some are administered by 
a federal committee made up of one delegate for each 
affiliated syndicate. To this type belongs the feder- 
ations of the alimentation of the leather industry, of 
the metal industry. Then there is the centralized 
type to which belongs the Federation of the Printing 
Trade; it is administered by a central committee 
elected for several years on the American ticket sys- 
tem. 

Finally there are the National Syndicates which 
seem to be at present the only lawful form of or- 
ganization for Government employes. While the 
syndicates belonging to the various federations retain 
the greater part of the funds collected, paying only 
between two and eight cents a month per member to 
the federation, a National Syndicate retains almost 
the totality of the monthly dues collected by the af- 
filiated syndicates which vests the " governing body " 
with extended powers. This organization which in 
no way harmonizes with the syndicalist spirit is onlj 



78 THE NEW UNIONISM 

writer ever receives any information or is admitted 
to meetings or secures interviews with men prominent 
in the labor movement unless he is a member in good 
standing of the Professional Writers' Syndicate af- 
filiated with the Confederation. While writers can- 
not be held responsible for the opinions of the peri- 
odicals employing them, they lose their card 
whenever they misrepresent any facts or misquote any 
speakers. 

An interesting development in the history of 
French syndicalism is the spreading of a class-con- 
scious feeling among groups of the population which 
a decade ago would have repudiated all ideas of sol- 
idarity with manual laborers. 

Since 1903 various classes of government em- 
ployes, such as road-menders, public school teachers, 
postal, telephone and telegraph workers, tax collect- 
ors, custom house employes, etc., have made efforts 
to transform their benevolent associations into fight- 
ing syndicates. Their desire to organize has been 
prompted by their gradual enslavement at the hands of 
local deputies and senators not to mention members of 
minor elective bodies who have reduced them, in elec- 
tion times, to the position of more or less willing 
propagandists. 

While the spoils system is not officially recognized 
in French politics, the abnormal development of bu- 
reaucratic institutions enables every representative of 
a ruling majority " having the ear " of the Govern- 
ment, to tyrannize over hundreds of state employes 
in his election district. 

The manual workers have on several occasions ex- 



REVOLUTIONARY SYNDICALISM 79 

tended to those victims of political exploitation a 
cordial invitation to join hands with them. 

The congress of Labor Exchanges held in Algiers 
in 1902 passed the following resolution: 

No class of workers can be kept out of the syndicalist 
sphere of activity whether those workers are employed by 
private parties or by the State. The congress directs La- 
bor Exchanges to admit to affiliation all organizations of 
state employes as well as associations of state teachers 
whose statutes indicate clearly that their purpose is to de- 
fend the interests of such corporative groups. 

In the recent years the Syndicate of Post Office, 
Telegraph and Telephone Workers and the National 
Syndicate of Railroad Workers have attracted a good 
deal of attention by their strikes of 1909 and 1910 
bnt what created the deepest impression all over the 
country was the belligerent attitude of the school 
teachers, whose state of mind is likely to be reflected 
by the coming generation entrusted to their care. 

As a consequence of the resolution passed by the 
Algiers congress a Committee on Syndicalist Educa- 
tion made up of six teachers and six working men 
was established by the Federation of Labor Ex- 
changes; it accomplished very little and was abol- 
ished in 1905. In that year Yvetot, then secretary 
of the 0. G. T. for the section of Labor Exchanges, 
sent to every exchange a circular recommending that 
all possible advances be made to teachers and every 
help extended to them. Several teachers' benevolent 
societies transformed themselves into syndicates and 
joined the local labor exchanges. When the Syndicate 
of the Seine Teachers, however, filed its application, 



Y8 THE NEW UNIONISM 

writer ever receives any information or is admitted 
to meetings or secures interviews with men prominent 
in the labor movement unless he is a member in good 
standing of the Professional Writers' Syndicate af- 
filiated with the Confederation. While writers can- 
not be held responsible for the opinions of the peri- 
odicals employing them, they lose their card 
whenever they misrepresent any facts or misquote any 
speakers. 

An interesting development in the history of 
French syndicalism is the spreading of a class-con- 
scious feeling among groups of the population which 
a decade ago would have repudiated all ideas of sol- 
idarity with manual laborers. 

Since 1903 various classes of government em- 
ployes, such as road-menders, public school teachers, 
postal, telephone and telegraph workers, tax collect- 
ors, custom house employes, etc., have made efforts 
to transform their benevolent associations into fight- 
ing syndicates. Their desire to organize has been 
prompted by their gradual enslavement at the hands of 
local deputies and senators not to mention members of 
minor elective bodies who have reduced them, in elec- 
tion times, to the position of more or less willing 
propagandists. 

While the spoils system is not officially recognized 
in French politics, the abnormal development of bu- 
reaucratic institutions enables every representative of 
a ruling majority " having the ear " of the Govern- 
ment, to tyrannize over hundreds of state employes 
in his election district. 

The manual workers have on several occasions ex- 



REVOLUTIONARY SYNDICALISM 79 

tended to those victims of political exploitation a 
cordial invitation to join hands with them. 

The congress of Labor Exchanges held in Algiers 
in 1902 passed the following resolution: 

No class of workers can be kept out of the syndicalist 
sphere of activity whether those workers are employed by 
private parties or by the State. The congress directs La- 
bor Exchanges to admit to affiliation all organizations of 
state employes as well as associations of state teachers 
whose statutes indicate clearly that their purpose is to de- 
fend the interests of such corporative groups. 

In the recent years the Syndicate of Post Office, 
Telegraph and Telephone Workers and the National 
Syndicate of Railroad Workers have attracted a good 
deal of attention by their strikes of 1909 and 1910 
but what created the deepest impression all over the 
country was the belligerent attitude of the school 
teachers, whose state of mind is likely to be reflected 
by the coming generation entrusted to their care. 

As a consequence of the resolution passed by the 
Algiers congress a Committee on Syndicalist Educa- 
tion made up of six teachers and six working men 
was established by the Federation of Labor Ex- 
changes; it accomplished very little and was abol- 
ished in 1905. In that year Yvetot, then secretary 
of the C. G. T. for the section of Labor Exchanges, 
Rent to every exchange a circular recommending that 
all possible advances be made to teachers and every 
help extended to them. Several teachers' benevolent 
societies transformed themselves into syndicates and 
joined the local labor exchanges. When the Syndicate 
of the Seine Teachers, however, filed its application, 



SO THE NEW UNIONISM 

a charter was refused to them by the government and 
the state attorney general was instructed to proceed 
against them. 

In spite of all, the syndicalist teachers sent out in 
December, 1905, a daring manifesto in which they 
stated that they were teaching "not governmental 
truth but absolute truth " and therefore considered 
themselves independent. They also declared their 
formal intention to affiliate with the local Labor Ex- 
changes. 

Many teachers lost their positions but the move- 
ment grew all over France and on August 16 and 17, 
1912, the teachers' congress held in Chambery 
adopted a militant attitude: it passed resolutions in 
favor of equal pay for men and women and approved 
of coeducation as the best means of bringing about 
sex equality. Most significant was the resolution em- 
bodying the attitude of the teachers toward the O. 
G. T.: 

The congress addresses to its fellow workers organized 
in the C. G. T. its sympathy with the propaganda of eman- 
cipation and education which they are carrying on. . . . 
The teachers declare once more their solidarity with all the 
wage earners united under the flag of the C. G. T. 

Another resolution read : 

For the purpose of maintaining the relations existing be- 
tween the union men serving as soldiers and the unions to 
which they belong, there shall be created in every one of our 
syndicates & Soldier's Penny fund designed to give moral 
and financial support to our comrades in the army. 

These resolutions called forth a storm of protest 



REVOLUTIONAEY SYNDICALISM 81 

in both the conservative and radical press. On Au- 
gust 22 the minister of education ordered the disso- 
lution of the teachers' syndicate to take place on or 
before September 10. Few of the syndicates obeyed 
and, most interesting symptom, the Federation of 
Teachers' Benevolent Associations, a very conserva- 
tive body with over 100,000 adherents, declared itself 
favorable to the principles of syndicalism. At this 
writing no decision has been taken by the govern- 
ment. 

The Soldier's Penny fund to which the teachers 
pledged themselves to contribute, is a fund estab- 
lished by the C. G. T. and out of which all the syn- 
dicated workers called under the flag are paid a nom- 
inal allowance, of $3.65 a year or a cent a day; 
its purpose is to remind them of their syndicalistic 
affiliations and oblige them to call regularly at the 
Labor Exchanges of the city or town where they are 
garrisoned. There they can attend lectures, perfect 
their technical education and read antimilitarist lit- 
erature. Following Herve's advice, the C. G. T. was 
quick to take advantage of the fact that owing to 
the compulsory military service thousands of young 
men from eighteen to twenty-five were herded together 
in barracks and could be easily reached by anti-mili- 
tarist propaganda. 

At its 12th congress, held in Havre in September, 
1912, the C. G. T. reaffirmed the position it adopted 
at the Marseilles congress in regard to war and anti- 
militarism. The Soldier's Penny fund was enthu- 
siastically approved of as a means of propaganda. 



8£ THE NEW, UNIONISM 

Another attempt was made by the Guesdists to estab- 
lish regular relations between the Confederation and 
the socialist party but the motion was defeated by a 
very large majority. In the discussion the " pure " 
syndicalists laid special stress on the point that, should 
such a connection be established, unions would be 
fatally drawn into politics to the detriment of their 
economic activity. 

While the C. G. T. never takes part in any political 
agitation, it does not fail to notice measures planned 
or taken by the government or reform laws passed 
by the French parliament and to express its opposi- 
tion to them mainly as a matter of education for the 
workers. When rumors of a possible European con- 
flagration became current in Europe, the C. G. T. 
called an extraordinary congress which met on No- 
vember 24 and 25, 1912. One thousand four hun- 
dred and fifty-three labor groups were represented 
and confirmed the anti-militarist resolutions of the 
September congress. They also accepted the princi- 
ple of a general twenty-four-hour strike as an anti- 
militarist demonstration. Some 500,000 men 
obeyed the strike order sent out on December 16, 
1912. 

A curious incident took place immediately after the 
two anti-militarist congresses held in Paris and Basel. 
The French government issued an order of mobiliza- 
tion which reached several villages on the German 
border on the night of November 26 and 27. Every 
man called under the flag responded and the conserv- 
ative papers enjoyed keenly what they called the 
difference between theory and practice. That order 



REVOLUTIONARY SYNDICALISM 83 

was explained away later on as due to a a mistake " 
of a telegraph employe. 

Bearing in mind that the C. G. T. has 455,000 
dues paying members and the French Socialist party 
only 70,000, one can readily understand the inde- 
pendent attitude of the syndicalists towards the so- 
cialists. This attitude is not new. From 1871 to 
1879 both mutualism and socialism dominated the 
unions. At the Marseilles congress in 1879 the so- 
cialists won a decisive battle. Until 1896 the unions 
remained frankly socialistic. At the London con- 
gress, however, a break took place between the par- 
tisans of economic action and those of political ac- 
tion. 

When the four socialist deputies Millerand, Viviani, 
Gerault-Richard and Jaures demanded to be seated 
in the congress on the strength of their parliamentary- 
mandate, a heated debate took place. They were 
finally seated by a vote of sixty against forty. The 
seating of anarchists caused another violent discussion 
and the vote showed how evenly divided up the con- 
gress was. The opponents of political action were 
seated by a vote of fifty-seven against fifty-six. The 
" minority " headed by Millerand withdrew and asked 
to be allowed to attend the congress as a separate sec- 
tion, which privilege was granted. 

Since then, vain efforts have been made at every 
congress to commit the workers' organization (after 
1902 the O. G. T.) to a socialist policy. The 12th 
Congress seems to have shattered forever the hopes 
of the politicians of gaining a foothold in the 
C. G. T. 



84 THE NEW UNIONISM 

One of the resolutions relative to the rise in prices 
presented at this congress was a suggestion to the 
workers to give up alcohol, tobacco, gambling and the 
consumption of unhygienic food products, to boycott 
all articles whose prices have been raised by combines, 
and other advice generally associated with papers read 
in women's reform clubs. Leon Jouhaux, the organ- 
izer of the congress and secretary of the C. G. T. did 
not miss such a good opportunity to jeer at the re- 
formists to whom the resolution was thrown as a sop. 

Several other resolutions pointed to the constant 
striving of the huge machine towards the uniting of 
its various elements and the smooth running of its 
parts. A committee was appointed to bring about 
the amalgamation of the two more important and 
of the several minor organizations with which trans- 
portation workers are now affiliated. 

The working principle of the Confederation is not 
to discipline or exclude the elements which do not 
fit in with a preconceived theory, but to wait until 
their nonconformism creates actual difficulties and 
then to point out the way to peace through industrial- 
ist conformism. 

Much as the leaders of the O. G. T. would object 
to such a classification, we may divide them up into 
two groups : the thinkers and the fighters. The first 
are statesmen and diplomats, planning and organiz- 
ing; the others stir up mobs in meeting halls and 
indulge in the verbal pyrotechnics and spectacular 
type of action which keeps workers and employers 
keyed up to the proper pitch. 

Most prominent in the councils of the Confedera- 



REVOLUTIONARY SYISTDICALISM 85 

tion is Emile Pouget, generally considered as the 
C. G. T.'s technical expert. He has been frequently 
compared to Richelieu's trusted adviser, " His Grey 
Eminence." Unctuous of speech, he can when the 
occasion requires, reveal an iron will. A lawyer's son 
he has preserved the bourgeoisie's clothes and man- 
ner. His age (he was born in 1860) also imparts to 
him a little more dignity than would befit the other 
leaders, much younger men. 

His career has been a picturesque one; expelled 
from a high school for " publishing " a revolutionary 
sheet circulated mostly among his fellow scholars, he 
became a clerk in a department store. He joined 
an anarchist group and studied Bakunin's theories. 
Then he wrote an appeal to the army inciting sol- 
diers to insurrection and was fortunate enough to es- 
cape prosecution. Soon after, however, during the 
1883 bread riots, he was arrested and sentenced to 
eight years in prison. Pardoned after three years he 
became a book salesman and succeeded in 1889 in 
founding a revolutionary organ Le Pere Peinard. 
Jail sentences began to pour down upon him until, 
having commended the acts of terrorism committed 
by the anarchists Ravachol, Vaillant and Henry, he 
no longer felt safe in France and became a voluntary 
exile. 

Taking advantage of a general amnesty, he re- 
turned from London in 1894 and became converted 
to syndicalism. He is now editor of the Voix du 
Peuple, official organ of the C. G. T. in which he 
has always advocated anti-militarism and sabotage, 
.which word he did not coin but added to the vocabu- 



86 THE NEW, UNIONISM 

lary of labor questions in 1894 while delivering ad- 
dresses in London. 

Victor Griffuehles, formerly secretary of the C. G. 
T. and now director of its printing plant, stands in 
striking contrast to the Grey Eminence. He is thirty- 
nine years old and belongs to a working class family. 
Apprenticed to a shoemaker when a child, he had 
but little schooling. No sooner was he able to hold 
a pen than he began to earn jail sentences for ultra- 
radical statements. He rose successively to the position 
of delegate to the Federation of Syndicates, sec- 
retary of the Federation of Skins and Hides Workers, 
and secretary of the C. G. T. He was the inaugurator 
of the bumper strike which is described in the chapter 
on Direct Action. His book on Syndicalist Action 
is one of the cleverest exposes of French syndicalism. 

Levy, until recently treasurer of the C. G. T., 
Merrheim, secretary of the Federation of Metal 
Workers, and Jouhaux, secretary of the C. G. T., 
form with Pouget and Griffuehles the " cabinet " of 
the C. G. T. 

Yvetot, Niel, Bousquet and especially Pataud, the 
" King of Electricity," are the great field workers and 
agitators. 

George Tvetot, a rabid anti-clerical and anti-mili- 
tarist, was born forty years ago in a barrack and 
brought up in a mission school. He learned type- 
setting in a religious printing establishment and se- 
cured a place with the most jingoistic of all French 
dailies, La Patrie. Then he met Fernand Pelloutier 
and Bakunin and under their guidance forgot entirely 
bis first training. His A, B, C, Syndicciliste mi bte 



BEVOLUTIONAEY SYNDICALISM 87 

Manuel du Soldat earned him several jail terms. He 
has the reputation of J being the most brutally out- 
spoken orator in the syndicalist movement. 

11 Little " Luquet, thirty-four years old, an ex-bar- 
ber, conducted the barbers' strike which was won 
through desperate sabotage (see page 44) and or- 
ganized the southern agricultural workers, perhaps 
the hardest class of the population to win over to syn- 
dicalist ideas. 

Niel, an ex-waiter, has lost much of his popularity 
on account of his spasmodic attacks of reformism. 
Since 1909, when he opposed the plans for a general 
strike which he knew to be doomed to failure, his 
advice has frequently been disregarded by the hot- 
heads. 

Bourgeois France and bourgeois Europe may know 
but little about the C. G. T. and its leaders. They 
cannot help knowing Pataud. Emile Pataud was born 
in 1870 in the free ward of a hospital. His parents 
were terribly poor and he remembers to this day that 
during the winter of 1879 and 1880 they never once 
lighted a fire. Having won a free scholarship for a 
trade school, Pataud studied until he was fifteen and 
then entered the Caille steel mills where he worked 
as a riveter. Later on he held positions as book- 
keeper and cooperage salesman, then went back to 
the Caille mills. Sent to Cherbourg to install ma- 
chinery on a torpedo boat he enlisted in the navy and 
became a violent anti-militarist. 

After his discharge he worked as an electrician, was 
engaged as private secretary by a labor representa- 
tive, founded a people's university, and started tQ 



88 THE NEW UNIONISM 

preach the hatred of parliamentary institutions. Un- 
til 1902 he kept himself alive in varied and pictur- 
esque ways even selling vegetables on a push cart 
stand. Then he succeeded in organizing the workers 
in the electrical industry and conducted a strike 
against the Edison Company. Convinced that the in- 
dustrialist system of organization was the only means 
by which the workers could win substantial victories 
he planned the spectacular coup which made his name 
famous. On March 8', 1905> at eight o'clock, every 
electric light in Paris went out and all the machinery 
relying on electric power was brought to a standstill. 
After twenty-two hours the companies yielded. The 
current was turned on. 

In August, 1908 and 1909, Pataud resorted to 
the same tactics. The government, however, foiled 
him on both occasions by keeping a battalion of army 
engineers ready to man the plants. 

Syndicalists are usually reticent when it comes to 
a detailed description of the industrial commonwealth 
of the future. The French conception of it may be 
visualized to a certain extent by a quotation from 
a fanciful piece of writing due to the pen of Pouget 
and Pataud. The title of it is : Horn we will make 
the revolution! The preface reveals, however, that 
the authors meant all the time, " How we made the 
revolution," which explains why this prophecy is writ- 
ten in the past tense. This is not entirely a work of 
fiction, for it was based upon the results of a nation- 
wide referendum taken by the C. G. T. on the sub- 
ject of the reorganization of society along industrial 
lines. 



REVOLUTIONAET SYNDICALISM 89 

The Lyons congress (1901) had expressed the 
wish to have this question placed on the programme of 
the next congress. In order that the answers should 
reflect faithfully the ideas prevalent among the work- 
ingmen, the Confederal Committee submitted the 1 
question to all the syndicates. The following ques- 
tions were sent out : 

(1) How would your syndicate act in order to transform 
itself from a fighting group into a productive group ? 

(2) How would you proceed to take possession of the 
machinery pertaining to your industry? 

(3) How do you conceive the organization and manage- 
ment of the shops and factories in the future ? 

(4) If your syndicate belongs to the highways and trans- 
portation system, how do you conceive its management"? 

(5) What will be your relations to your federation of 
trade or of industry after the reorganization? 

(6) On what principle would the distribution of products 
take place and how would the productive groups procure 
raw material for themselves? 

(7) What part would the labor exchanges play in the 
transformed society and what would be their duties with 
reference to the collecting of statistics and to the distribu- 
tion of products? 

At the Montpellier congress, in 1902, a number of 
reports were presented answering the above questions. 
The reports were drawn in the name of the syndicates 
and came from different parts of France. Only a 
limited number of them were printed as appendices 
to the general report of the congress. Among them, 
it may be interesting to note, was the report of the 
syndicate of agricultural laborers. Th« rest were 
summed up in the official organ of the Confederation, 
La Yoix du Peuple, 



90 THE KEW UNIONISM 

Pataud and Pouget's book appeared in 1905. 
Omitting a description of the riots which preceded 
the general strike and the expropriation of the em- 
ployers, we come to two interesting passages: one 
relative to the remuneration of the workers in the new 
commonwealth and the other relative to the treatment 
accorded to those unwilling to accept the new order of 
things : 

Every human being from fifteen to fifty, regardless of 
the class of work performed was entitled to an equal re- 
numeration paid to him in two different ways, so as to sat- 
isfy, on the one side, his natural wants, on the other, his 
desire for certain luxuries. Workers received necessaries of 
life on presentation of their union card; luxuries were de- 
livered to them against luxury coupons. 

By necessaries were understood all the goods such as 
foodstuffs or clothing, the production of which was so 
plentiful that no restrictions could be placed on their con- 
sumption; everyone could draw them from the common 
fund according to his needs, without any other formality 
than presenting his card to the clerks in the storehouses. 

The word luxuries covered the various materials which, 
being in too small quantities to be placed gratuitously at 
everyone's disposal, would retain a purchase value, likely 
to fluctuate according to the supply and demand. The price 
of these products was calculated on the basis of the old 
currency system and the quality of labor necessary to pro- 
duce them was one of the main factors in the fluctuation of 
their value ; they were delivered against coupons drawn more 
or less like ordinary bank checks. 

Whenever goods of the second or luxury class became 
plentiful enough to justify a free distribution, they were 
added to the first class and placed without restriction within 
everyone's reach. . . . The standard of value established by 
the capitalist system was maintained; it was considered 



REVOLUTIONAEY SYNDICALISM 91 

i 
that to take as a unit an hour's work instead of a 
gram of gold would be a mere word quibble. 

Gold could be used . . . also to purchase goods from the 
refractory ones who hadn't become reconciled to the new 
social order. . • . 

Against those who, out of narrowness of mind or fear of 
incurring losses, insisted on living according to the old sys- 
tem of life, no measure was resorted to, except constant boy- 
cott. . . . Whenever they saw fit to conform, they were 
welcomed without any bitter feeling. 

The former members of the parasitic classes were invited 
either to select an occupation or to emigrate; when they 
absolutely refused to conform they were treated as Apaches. 
It was out of the question to reopen prisons and to establish 
anew for their use a system of correction, . . . they were 
deported, supplied with a certain amount of gold, to what- 
ever other country they selected. . . . 

(See also chapter IV, page 63.)) 



CHAPTER VI 

THE NEW UNIONISM IN THE UNITED STATES! 

INDUSTRIALISM 

t 

Many have been the attempts at organizing labor 
in the United States along the lines of industrial 
unionism not only for the purpose of winning ma- 
terial advantages for the workers but with a view to 
reshaping society and transforming it from a republic 
ruled by capitalists into an industrial commonwealth 
ruled by the producers themselves. 

The earliest attempt at industrial organization in 
the United States was the creation of the National 
Labor Union, which was formed in 1866 in Balti- 
more, Md. After two years it had a membership of 
640,000 but went to pieces in 1868-9. 

The Knights of Labor was organized in 1869 and 
rose to a position of importance between 1880 and 
1890. It was not an industrial organization in the 
modern sense of the word nor was it a class organiza- 
tion. It admitted to membership in the same local 
union, workers of all industries in the same locality 
and also admitted small business men and professional 
men. 

This organization ignored too completely the di- 
vergent interests of crafts which were apparently bet- 
ter served at the time by the system of craft unions 
adopted by the American Federation of Labor. The 

92 



THE UNITED STATES 93 

craft system finally prevailed and in 1895 the Knights 
of Labor was routed out of existence. 

John Most's propaganda for anarchism in this coun- 
try to which he had come in 1882 after serving a sen- 
tence of imprisonment in England, was in the main 
responsible for the creation of another working class 
organization which embodied many features of the 
new unionism. 

Groups of anarchists and social revolutionists from 
twenty-six cities sent their delegates to a congress held 
in Pittsburgh in October, 1883. The congress de- 
cided to establish an International Working People's 
Association whose work would be centralized through 
an " Information Bureau " in Chicago. It drafted 
the famous Pittsburgh proclamation advodating " the 
destruction of the existing government by all means, 
i. e., by energetic, implacable, revolutionary and in- 
ternational action/' and the establishment of an indus- 
trial system based upon " the free exchange of equiva- 
lent products between the producing organizations 
themselves and without the intervention of middlemen 
and profit making." 

In two years the International membership grew 
to some 7000, of whom 3000 were recruited in Chi- 
cago. Then the Haymarket tragedy took place with 
the ensuing trial and the hanging of Spies, Parsons, 
Fischer and Engel and the International passed out 
of existence. 

In 1881 an International Working Men's Associa- 
tion had been created in Pittsburgh. It was made 
up mostly of native American laborers and farmers 
who rejected all parliamentary action and advocated 



m THE NEW UNIONISM 

education and propaganda as the best means to bring 
about a social revolution. In 1887, claiming a mem- 
bership of 6000, they attempted to amalgamate with 
the Socialist Labor party and when negotiations 
failed they disbanded. 

The year 1887 which witnessed the passing away 
of several pioneer organizations marked the definite 
rise of the American Federation of Labor. It was 
to be and it has remained in theory an independent 
labor body without any political entanglements. Ac- 
cording to the provisions of Article IV, section 5 of 
its constitution, the Federation shall not affiliate with 
any political party. At several conventions socialists 
within its ranks have endeavored to commit the Fed- 
eration to a frankly socialistic policy but thus far 
without success. 

The development of machinery in this country 
soon began to render craft organization in certain 
trades absolutely ineffective; the many disappoint- 
ments suffered by the skilled men owing to what Debs 
called the " dog-eat-dog " policy of the various unions 
and the growing importance of the unskilled in labor 
problems made it necessary for large groups of work- 
ers to reorganize along new lines. 

The American Railway Union was organized at 
Chicago in June, 1893, by Eugene V. Debs. In 
1894, at the time of the great Pullman strike, it had 
a membership of 150,000. This rapid growth was 
due to several strikes won by the union, especially the 
great Northern strike involving all the employes of the 
entire system. The Pullman strike, however, ended 
in disaster. In violation of the law and in defiance 



IN THE UNITED STATES 95 

of Governor Altgeld's protest, President Cleveland 
sent Federal troops into Illinois and broke the back 
of the strike. Debs and several other officers of the 
American Railway Union were indicted and received 
jail sentences. Blacklisted by all the railroad com- 
panies, members of the A. R. U. had to repudiate their 
affiliations and the Union held its last convention in 
Chicago in 1897. 

The loss of the Pullman strike by the American 
Railway Union was not the only reason for its dis- 
integration. Many of its former members contend 
that in spite of the setback occasioned by the failure 
of the Pullman strike, the organization was begin- 
ning to recover when, at the convention of 1897, Debs 
turned the organization over to the Socialist-Demo- 
cratic colonization scheme. 

In 1895 another industrial workers' group was or- 
ganized, the Western Federation of Miners. Its pur- 
pose was to bring together all the workers in the in- 
dustry of metal mining in the United States, whether 
pick and shovel workers, millmen, smeltermen or en- 
gineers. 

The W. F. of M. was affiliated with the A. F. of 
L. until the Leadville strike in 1896. Failing to re- 
ceive any support, moral or financial from the Federa- 
tion, the miners withdrew from the A. F. of L. 

In 1899 the Western Labor Union was organized 
by the W. F. M. at Salt Lake City, Utah. In 1902, 
the Western Labor Union changed its name and be- 
came the American Labor Union and moved its gen- 
eral office from Butte, Mont., to Chicago, 111. 

The spirit of industrial solidarity manifested by 



96 THE NEW UNIONISM 

the miners spread among other organizations. In the 
fall of 1904 Isaac Cowen, American representative of 
the Amalgamated Society of Engineers of Great Brit- 
ain; Clarence Smith, secretary and treasurer of the 
American Labor Union; Thomas J. Hagerty, editor 
of the Voice of Labor, organ of the A. L. U. ; George 
Estes, president of the United Brotherhood of Kail- 
way employes ; W. L. Hall, general secretary of the 
Brotherhood, and Wm. E. Trautman, editor of the 
Brauer Zeitung, organ of the United Brewery Work- 
ers of America, held a conference in Chicago. They 
invited thirty-six other men active in the labor move- 
ment to meet them in secret conference on January 
2, 1905. Out of the thirty-six, only two, Max S. 
Hayes, editor of a trade union paper and Victor Ber- 
ger, editor of a socialist publication declined to at- 
tend. 

The conference met at the appointed time, selected 
William Dudley Haywood as chairman of its execu- 
tive committee — the other members of the board be- 
ing William E. Trautman, A. M. Simons, W. L. Hall 
and Clarence Smith — and drew up a manifesto ad- 
dressed to the Workers of the World. It set forth the 
disadvantages of pure and simple craft organization 
and advocated the forming of one single union ad- 
mitting all workers regardless of craft or nationality. 

The manifesto ended with a call for a convention 
to be held in Chicago on June 27. This document 
translated into several languages was widely circulated 
by the executive committee assisted by the American 
Labor Union and the Western Federation of Miners. 

One hundred and eighty-six delegates met in Chi- 



IN THE UNITED STATES 97 

cago, representing thirty-four State, district, local or 
national organizations. 

The convention lasted twelve days and when it ad- 
journed the Industrial Workers of the World had 
been organized. The labor groups admitted to affilia- 
tion were: the Western Federation of Miners with 
27,000 members ; the Socialist Trade and Labor Alli- 
ance, 1450' members; the Punch Press Operators, 168 
members ; the United Metal Workers, 3000 members ; 
the Longshoremen's Union, 400 members ; the Amer- 
ican Labor Union, 16,500 members; the United 
Brotherhood of Railway Employes, 2087 members. 
The following preamble was adopted : 

The working class and the employing class have nothing 
in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and 
want are found among millions of working people and the 
few, who make up the employing class, have all the good 
things of life. 

Between these two classes a struggle must go on until all 
the toilers come together on the political, as well as on the 
industrial field, and take and hold that which they produce 
by their labor through an economic organization of the 
working class, without affiliation with any political party. 

The rapid gathering of wealth and the centering of the 
management of industries into fewer and fewer hands make 
the trade unions unable to cope with the ever-growing power 
of the employing class, because the trade unions foster a 
state of things which allows one set of workers to be pitted 
against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby 
helping defeat one another in wage wars. The trade unions 
aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the be- 
lief that the working class have interests in common with 
their employers. 

These sad conditions can be changed and the interests of 
the working class upheld only by an organization formed in 



98 THE NEW UNIONISM 

such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in 
all industries, if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or 
lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an 
injury to one an injury to all. 

The uncertainties and the contradictions found in 
this preamble are easily understood when one bears 
in mind the heterogeneous elements which, were repre- 
sented at the first convention and whose divergent 
views had, to a certain extent, to be harmonized : par- 
liamentary socialists, opportunists, Marxists, anarch- 
ists, industrialists, craft unionists. During the first 
year of the I. W. W.'s existence, those irreconcilable 
elements struggled bitterly for supremacy. The two 
socialist factions looked upon the I. W. W. as a con- 
venient battle ground. 

The I. W. W. survived this internal strife and be- 
gan to issue a monthly organ, the Industrial Worker. 
It also sent out the first call for the defense of Hay- 
wood, Moyer and Pettibone, the officers of the W. F. 
M. who had been arrested in connection with the assas- 
sination of Governor Steunenberg of Idaho. 

The second convention met in September, 1906, 
with ninety-three delegates representing 60,000 work- 
ers. The struggle for control divided the convention 
into two factions; the reactionaries with the help of 
the chairman tried to obstruct the deliberation until 
such time as their opponents would be obliged to leave 
for their homes. The radicals succeeded in defeating 
these tactics but when the convention adjourned, the 
former officials seized the general headquarters and 
held them with the assistance of the police. The 
newly elected officers, abandoned to their fate by the 



Itf THE UNITED STATES 99 

Western Federation of Miners and the socialist party, 
had to open headquarters of their own. The W. F. M. 
finally withdrew its support from the usurpers 
who gave up the struggle. At the third convention, 
which was quite uneventful, it became evident that the 
socialist politicians who had remained within the or- 
ganization were striving to use it in furtherance of 
their own ends. In 1908, however, at the fourth 
convention, the purely industrialist element secured 
control of the organization. The wording of the pre- 
amble was greatly modified and in its amended ver- 
sion that document reflected the revolutionary trend 
of the new leaders. The second paragraph was 
changed to read thus : 

Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the 
workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of 
the earth and the machinery of production, and abolish the 
wage system. 

Finally two new paragraphs were added to the pre- 
amble : 

Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wages 
for a fair day's work," we must inscribe on our banner the 
revolutionary watchword, " Abolition of the wage system." 

It is the historic mission of the working class to do away 
with capitalism. The army of production must be organ- 
ized, not only for the every-day struggle with capitalists, 
but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have 
been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are form- 
ing the structure of the new society within the shell of the 
old. 

The defeated politicians immediately organized an- 
other I. W. W. committed to a parliamentary policy. 



100 THE NEW UNIONISM 

It stands at present in the same relation to the first 
I. W. W. as the Socialist Labor Party stands to the 
Socialist Party. It is little more than a name and has 
not played any part in the labor disputes which have 
since arisen. 

At the first convention of the I. W. W. it was gen- 
erally agreed that industrial unionism was to be 
primarily a departmental structure. The original 
constitution provided for thirteen departments. This 
system soon appeared impracticable and as the purely 
industrialist view was beginning to dominate the mem- 
bership it was more and more definitely recognized 
that the New Unionism should organize from below 
upward. In other words, the local industrial union, 
not the department, was to be the basis of organiza- 
tion. The discussion relative to departments taking 
place at the various conventions have only had a tenta- 
tive, almost academic character. 

We quote the following from a pamphlet The I. W. 
W., Its history, structure and methods, by Vincent 
St. John, who is, at present, general secretary of the 
organization : 

GENERAL OUTLINE 

1. The unit of organization is the Local Industrial Union. 
The local industrial union embraces all of the workers of a 
given industry in a given city, town or district. 

2. All local industrial unions of the same industry are 
combined into a National Industrial Union with jurisdiction 
over the entire industry. 

3. National industrial unions of closely allied industries 
are combined into Departmental Organizations. For exam- 
ple, all national industrial unions engaged in the production 



IN THE UNITED STATES 101 

of Food Products and in handling them would be combined 
into the Department of Food Products. Steam, Air, Water 
and Land national divisions of the Transportation Industry, 
form the Transportation Department. 

4. The Industrial Departments are combined into the 
General Organization, which in turn is to be an integral part 
of a like International Organization ; and through the inter- 
national organization establish solidarity and cooperation 
between the workers of all countries. 

SUBDIVISIONS 

Taking into consideration the technical differences that 
exist within the different departments of the industries, and 
the needs where large numbers of workers are employed, the 
local industrial union is branched to meet these require- 
ments. 

1. Language branches, so that the workers can conduct 
the affairs of the organization in the language they are 
most familiar with. 

2. Shop branches, so that the workers of each shop con- 
trol the conditions that directly affect them. 

3. Department branches in large industries, to simplify 
and systematize the business of the organization. 

4. District branches, to enable members to attend meet- 
ings of the union without having to travel too great a dis- 
tance. These branches are only necessary in the large cities 
and big industries where the industry covers large areas. 

5. District Councils, in order that every given industrial 
district shall have complete industrial solidarity among the 
workers in all industries of such district, as well as among 
the workers of each industry. The Industrial District Coun- 
cil combines all the local industrial unions of the district 
Through it concerted action is maintained for its district. 

FUNCTIONS OF BRANCHES 

Branches of an industrial local deal with the employer 
only through the Industrial Union. Thus, while the work- 



102 THE NEW UNIONISM 

ers in each branch determine the conditions that directly af- 
fect them, they act in concert with all the workers through 
the industrial union. 

As the knowledge of the English language becomes more 
general, the language branches will disappear. 

The development of machine production will also grad- 
ually eliminate the branches based on technical knowledge, 
or skill. 

The constant development and concentration of the owner- 
ship and control of industry will be met by a like concen- 
tration of the number of industrial unions and industrial 
departments. It is meant that the organization at all times 
shall conform to the needs of the hour and eventually 
furnish the union through which and by which the organ- 
ized workers will be able to determine the amount of food, 
clothing, shelter, education and amusement necessary to sat- 
isfy the wants of the workers. 

ADMINISTRATION OF THE ORGANIZATION 

Local unions have full charge of all their local affairs; 
elect their own officers; determine their pay; and also the 
amount of dues collected by the local from the membership. 
The general organization, however, does not allow any local 
to charge over $1.00 per month dues or $5.00 initiation 
fee. 

Each branch of a local industrial union elects a delegate 
or delegates to the central committee of the local industrial 
union. This central committee is the administrative body of 
the local industrial union. Officers of the branches consist 
of secretary, treasurer, chairman and trustees. 

Officers of the local industrial union consist of secretary 
and treasurer, chairman and trustees. 

Each local industrial union within a given district elects 
a delegate or delegates to the district council. The district 
council has as officers a secretary-treasurer and trustees. 
The officers of the district council are elected by the dele- 
gates thereof. 

All officers in local bodies are elected by referendum vote 



IN THE UNITED STATES 103 

of all the membership involved, except those of the district 
council. 

Proportional representation does not prevail in the dele- 
gations of the branches and to district councils. Each 
branch and local has the same number of delegates. Each 
delegate casts one vote. 

National industrial unions hold annual conventions. 
Delegates from each local of the national union cast a vote 
based upon the membership of the local that they represent. 

The national industrial union nominates the candidates 
for officers at the convention, and the three nominees re- 
ceiving the highest votes at the convention are sent to all 
the membership to be voted upon in selecting the officers. 

The officers of the national unions consist of secretary and 
treasurer, and executive board. Each national union elects 
delegates to the department to which it belongs. The same 
procedure is followed in electing delegates as in electing of- 
ficers. 

Industrial departments hold conventions and nominate the 
delegates that are elected to the general convention. Dele- 
gates to the general convention nominate candidates for the 
offices of the general organization which are a General Sec- 
retary-Treasurer, and a General Organizer. These general 
officers are elected by the vote of the entire organization. 

The General Executive Board is composed of one member 
from each Industrial Department and is selected by the 
membership of the department. 

General conventions are held annually at present. 

The rule in determining the wages of the officers of all 
parts of the organization is, to pay the officers who are 
needed approximately the same wages they would receive 
when employed in the industry in which they work. The 
wages of the general secretary and the general organizer are 
each $90.00 per month. 

Concerning the methods of the Industrial Workers 

of the World Vincent St. John expresses himself as 

follows : 



104 the new; unionism 

As a revolutionary organization the Industrial Workers 
of the World aims to use any and all tactics that will get 
the results sought with the least expenditure of time and 
energy. The tactics used are determined solely by the 
power of the organization to make good in their use. The 
question of " right " and " wrong " does not concern us. 

No terms made with an employer are final. All peace so 
long as the wage system lasts, is but an armed truce. At 
any favorable opportunity the struggle for more control of 
industry is renewed. 

The Industrial Workers realize that the day of successful 
long strikes is past. Under all ordinary circumstances a 
strike that is not won in four to six weeks cannot be won 
by remaining out longer. In trustified industry the em- 
ployer can better afford to fight one strike that lasts six 
months than he can six strikes that take place in that period. 

The organization does not allow any part to enter into 
time contracts with the employers. It aims where strikes 
are used, to paralyze all branches of the industry involved, 
when the employers can least afford a cessation of work — 
during the busy season and when there are rush orders to be 
filled. 

The Industrial Workers of the World maintains that 
nothing will be conceded by the employers except that which 
we have the power to take and hold by the strength of our 
organization. Therefore we seek no agreements with the 
employers. 

Failing to force concessions from the employers by the 
strike, work is resumed and " sabotage " is used to force the 
employers to concede the demands of the workers. 

The great progress made in machine production results in 
an ever increasing army of unemployed. To counteract this 
the Industrial Workers of the World aims to establish the 
shorter work day, and to slow up the working pace, thus 
compelling the employment of more and more workers. 

To facilitate the work of the organization large initiation 
fees and dues are prohibited by the I. W. W. 

During strikes the works are closely picketed and every 



IN THE UNITED STATES 105 

effort made to keep the employers from getting workers into 
the shops. All supplies are cut off from strike-bound 
shops. All shipments are refused or missent, delayed and 
lost if possible. Strike breakers are also isolated to the full 
extent of the power of the organization. Interference by 
the government is resented by open violation of the govern- 
ment's orders, going to jail en masse, causing expense to the 
tax-payers, which is but another name for the employing 
class. 

In short, the I. W. W. advocates the use of militant " di- 
rect action " tactics to the full extent of our power to make 
good. 

The I. W. W. has taken a very active part in almost 
every labor war waged since the organization was 
founded. 

In 1906 it helped the hotel and restaurant work- 
ers of Goldfield, Nevada, to obtain the eight hour day. 
In 1907 when textile mill owners in Skowhegan, 
Maine, discharged several I. W. W. organizers, 3000 
workers went on strike and after four weeks won a 
complete victory notwithstanding the fact that the 
A. F. of L. had lent its assistance to the employers 
and furnished strike breakers. In Portland, Ore- 
gon, 3000 saw mill workers struck for a nine hour 
day and an increase in wages from $1.75 to $2.50 
per day. After six weeks, the companies yielded and 
the prestige of the I. W. W. was greatly increased in 
the Western States. 

From March 10, 1907, until April 22, the W. F. M. 
and the I. W. W. had to wage a bitter fight for ex- 
istence in Goldfield, Nevada, antagonized as they 
were by the A. F. of L. In April a compromise was 
peached owing to the weakness of the W. F. M. offi- 



106 THE NEW UNIONISM 

cials. The fight started again at intervals between 
April and September and ended only when the eight 
hour day and the minimum wage of $4.50 per day 
for every kind of labor had been accepted by employ- 
ers. 

In July, August and September, 1909, the I. <W. W. 
managed the bloody McKees Rocks strike, which 
involved 8000 men, belonging to some sixteen nation- 
alities, employed in the plants of the Pressed Steel 
Car Company. The employers called to their help 
the State constabulary or, as the strikers called them, 
the American Cossacks. The strike committee 
served notice upon their commanding officers that 
for every striker killed or injured the life of a Cos- 
sack would be taken in return. The strikers kept 
their word. After eleven weeks of hostilities a ter- 
rible encounter between the mob and the Cossacks, in 
which many were killed and wounded on both sides 
— the Cossacks being" finally driven to take refuge 
in the plants of the Company — put an end to the 
strike. 

In November, 1909, the authorities of Spokane, 
Wash., ordered the arrest of all I. W. W. speakers 
who attempted to hold street meetings. The locals 
resisted and over 500 I. W. W. members, men and 
women went to jail. Two hundred went on a hun- 
ger strike of from eleven to thirteen days and then 
were kept from thirty to forty-five days on two 
ounces of bread a day and water. In March, 1910, 
the Spokane authorities yielded and a law was passed 
allowing street speaking. 

In the same year the Fresno authorities attempted 



IN THE UNITED STATES 107 

to prevent the I. W. W. from organizing the orchard 
workers in the San Joaquin Valley. The fight lasted 
four months during which time over one hundred 
I. W. W. men were locked up. When detachments of 
free speech fighters started for Fresno from Port- 
land, Spokane and Denver, the Fresno authorities 
feared a civil war and freedom of speech was once 
more granted in all the region. 

In the winter of 1911, the I. W. W. conducted 
the strike of the Brooklyn shoe workers. In Jan- 
uary, 1912, the workers in the Lawrence textile mills, 
25,000 strong, struck against a reduction in wages. 
~No more than 1500 of them were members of any 
labor organization ; of this number, 1200 belonged to 
Textile Workers Union No. 20, I. W. W. The 
other 300 were connected with the United Textile 
Workers of America holding a charter from the A* 
F. of L. The pressure of the militia, of the State 
detective force and of a host of private detectives 
and even the arrest of two strike leaders, Ettor and 
Giovannitti, failed to intimidate the strikers. The 
employers had to accept the workers' terms and grant 
increases of from five per cent, to the skilled to twen- 
ty-five per cent, to the unskilled mill workers. 

The leaders of the I. W. W. are, without exception, 
men from the ranks of labor who have won their 
spurs in labor wars, who have suffered imprisonment 
and often braved death for their cause. Vincent St. 
John, William D. Haywood, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, 
William Trautman, Joseph Ettor and Arturo Gio- 
vannitti have all served jail sentences; Vincent St. 
John was shot and terribly injured; it was probably 



108 THE NEW UNIONISM 

a desire on the part of the authorities to avoid re- 
prisals which saved the lives of Haywood, Moyer 
and Pettibone, and more recently Ettor and Giovan- 
nitti held on problematic charges of murder. 

Vincent St. John, secretary and treasurer of the 
I. W. W. was born in 1876. He went to work when 
barely fourteen as a delivery boy. Later on he be- 
came a farm hand, then a tinner, then a printer, 
then an upholsterer. At eighteen he drifted into 
Cripple Creek and joined the W. F. M. In 1900 he 
was elected president of the local miners' union of 
Telluride, Colo., and managed the strike of 1901. 
Arrested with ten other agitators on a charge of con- 
spiracy, then released, he was driven out of 
that section of the country by the State authorities. 
In 1903, he went to Cceur d'Alene, Idaho, and set to 
work organizing the miners. After the assassination 
of Governor Steunenberg, he was again arrested, 
held thirty days without a hearing, taken back to 
Colorado on old charges, held again for sixty days 
and finally was released on bonds. 

The Western Federation of Miners elected him a 
member of its executive board in 1906 and the same 
year sent him as delegate to the second convention of 
the I. W. W. A convinced industrialist, he disap- 
proved of the position taken by the officials of the 
W. F. M. at that convention, resigned and was elected 
a member of the executive board of the I. W. W. 

In 1907 he went to Goldfield, Nev. and worked in 
the mines. At the third convention of the I. W. W. 
he was elected general organizer. In November of 
that year he was assaulted and severely injured in 



IN THE UNITED STATES 109 

Goldfield and had to go to Chicago for treatment. 
After leaving the hospital he served as general or- 
ganizer for the I. W. W. until September, 1908, when 
he was elected general secretary and treasurer, an 
office which he has filled ever since. 

William Dudley Haywood, to whose popularity 
the tremendous rise of the I. W. W. is greatly due, 
was born in Salt Lake City forty-three years ago. 
His father was a miner, and his mother, having be- 
come a widow, married another miner. Ophir 
Camp where the family lived was rather far from 
school and libraries. At nine, barely able to read 
and write, Bill was sent to work underground. At 
eleven it was decided that he should become a farmer. 
At fourteen, however, he took his own destiny in 
hand, and ran away to Nevada where he found em- 
ployment with the Ohio Mining Company. He 
bought himself books and soon acquired an expert 
knowledge of all the mining crafts, including sur- 
veying and assaying. He located a homestead in 
Nevada and might have become prosperous had not 
his land soon afterwards been allotted to an Indian 
tribe. 

He became a miner once more and spent six years 
prospecting, contracting and working leases in Ne- 
vada, Utah, Colorado and Idaho. In the meantime 
he displayed untiring activity in organizing the min- 
ers everywhere, addressing camps, crowds, hall audi- 
ences and winning much popularity through his 
blunt, >ough and ready fluency. He was in Silver 
City, Idaho, when the Western Federation of Miners 
was organized and he soon assumed a leading part in 



110 THE NEW UNIONISM 

it. Starting as assistant secretary, he soon rose to 
the chairmanship of the executive board and was oc- 
cupying that office when the Cceur d'Alene strike 
took place in 1899. 

The troubles which marked the Idaho strike and 
the subsequent uprisings in California mining towns 
will not soon be forgotten. They were bloodshed, 
rioting, martial rule. A whole town was imprisoned 
in the " bull pen," the Governor of Colorado sus- 
pended the writ of habeas corpus, a judge advocate 
general made himself famous by his saying " To hell 
with the Constitution," and a commander of the mi- 
litia announced that in place of writs of habeas cor- 
pus, the strikers would get post-mortems. 

The Federation in the meantime was blowing up 
mills, bridges and factories. In 1906 someone mur- 
dered Governor Steunenberg of Idaho, by means of a 
bomb. Haywood was then secretary and treasurer of 
the Federation. Arrested in Denver, the Federa- 
tion's headquarters, he was kidnaped to Idaho and 
charged, with Moyer and Pettibone, the other officers 
of the Federation, with the assassination of Steunen- 
berg. 

He was kept a year and a half in the Boise jail 
awaiting trial. This long delay enabled the Western 
Federation of Miners, the American Federation of 
Labor and the Socialist groups to gather together an 
enormous defense fund. The three men were ac- 
quitted. From the day of the Boise verdict dates 
Haywood's growing fame. He has won the enmity 
of many socialist leaders by his constant attacks on 
the A, F. of L. and his propaganda for industrialism. 



IN THE UNITED STATES ill 

In February, 1913, he was recalled from the National 
Executive Committee of the Socialist party. 

Joseph J. Ettor was born in Brooklyn about twen- 
ty-six years ago. When he was only one year old, 
his father, who was a militant revolutionist, took him 
to Chicago. Ettor senior was on Haymarket Square 
on the sinister night of the bomb throwing and was 
severely wounded. 

In 1906, Ettor was heard of on the Pacific Coast 
organizing the debris workers after the earthquake 
and engaging with the Pinkertons in various squab- 
bles that landed him in the lock-up. At the time of 
the disaster, Ettor was employed in the shipyards as 
an ironworker. 

He left the Golden Gate in 1907 to travel up and 
down the Pacific coast as an organizer for the 
I. W. W. In this capacity he visited many lumber 
and railroad camps and was more than once warned 
to leave on threat of being killed. He came East and 
in the McKees Eocks strike rose to prominence owing 
to his fluency in several languages, for the strike of 
the Pressed Steel Car Company's men was waged 
almost entirely by foreigners and unskilled work- 
men. 

He was also active in the big strike which af- 
fected Schwab's steel works in South Bethlehem. 
He inaugurated new strike tactics, employing freely 
the camera to gather evidence of the men's lineup. 
He also directed the shoe workers' strike in Brook- 
lyn ; when this was over, he betook himself to Law- 
rence, where he was arrested with Giovannitti and 
tried as accessory to the murder of an Italian girl who 



112 THE NEW UNIONISM 

had been shot during a street riot. He was kept in 
jail without trial much longer than the statutes of 
Massachusetts permitted the authorities to hold him. 
It was feared at a time that he should share the fate of 
the Chicago anarchists. Fortunately, the apparently- 
well founded charges that certain mill owners had 
" planted " evidence damaging to the workers, dis- 
credited the prosecution ; Ettor and Giovannitti were 
acquitted. 

Arturo Giovannitti, the poet of the industrialist 
movement was born twenty-nine years ago in Cam- 
pobasso in the province of Abruzzi, Italy. He came 
into prominence at the time of the Lawrence strike. 
During his confinement in the Lawrence jail, he 
wrote several poems among others " The Walker " and 
" The Cage " which attracted much attention when 
they appeared in conservative publications. Giovan- 
nitti received his education at the University of his 
native city, which he left when he was barely sixteen. 
His life in the United States has been picturesque and 
variegated. He was in turn a minter, a bookkeeper, 
a theological student, a mission preacher, a tramp. 
For four years, he has edited II Proletwrio, an indus- 
trialist weekly of New York City. 

William E. Trautman, who has been especially 
active in organizing the Brewery Workers was born 
in New Zealand, forty-four years ago. After his 
father's death in a mine disaster, he was sent to 
school in Germany. He worked as a brewer in sev- 
eral parts of Germany and Eussia. In 1892 he came 
to the United States where his wide experience and 



IN THE UNITED STATES 113 

his linguistic ability have made him one of the most 
useful workers in cosmopolitan communities. Traut- 
man is not only a clever organizer, but a clear thinker 
and his pamphlets on Why Strikes are Lost, One Big 
Umon, Direct Action and Sabotage, are forceful ex- 
positions of the American industrialist methods. 

Another picturesque and attractive character 
among the I. W. W. organizers is Elizabeth Gurley 
Flynn, who has been called the Joan of Arc of labor 
wars, and who seems destined some day to succeed 
Mother Jones as the foremost woman agitator. Hav- 
ing lost count of the various occasions on which she 
has been jailed, she points with pride to her Irish 
ancestors, who for six generations incurred at regular 
intervals the displeasure of the British authorities 
and paid frequent visits to political lockups of the 
Emerald Isle. 

Born in Concord, N. H., in 1890, she has been for 
eight years an active labor agitator. At fifteen she 
tried her hand at organizing by starting a socialist 
group made up of her classmates at the Morris High 
School, New York City. Then she began to address 
crowds at street corners and in 1907, being then sev- 
enteen years of age, was arrested for the first time 
for obstructing the traffic at Thirty-eighth Street and 
Broadway, New York. 

Two years later, in 1909, she was in Spokane and 
with 500 other members of the I. W. W. remained in 
jail until the tax payers, weary of being assessed for 
their maintenance, had all the speakers released and 
granted them full freedom of speech. She has been 



114 THE NEW UNIONISM 

active in the Eastern strikes and played quite an im- 
portant part in the Lawrence strike. 

The industrialist idea is gaining headway among 
many unions affiliated with the American Federation 
of Labor. The A. F. of L. which had thus far ig- 
nored entirely the unskilled workers has begun to 
organize them, especially in the sections of the coun- 
try where the I. W. W. has been active. 

The American Federation of Labor has never 
claimed that its membership included more than 
seven per cent, of the working class of America ; con- 
sidering the importance which unskilled labor is as- 
suming in the United States, owing to the constantly 
growing use of machinery in every industry, the 
unions of skilled craftsmen can no longer hold their 
own. Much discontent has been caused within the 
ranks of the A. F. of L. by the fact that during 
strikes, one craft is allowed to " scab " on another 
craft and that, furthermore, crafts have from time 
to time been disciplined for striking in sympathy 
with other crafts. ' A glaring instance of this lack of 
solidarity was observed during the recent newspaper 
strike in Chicago. When the pressmen were locked 
out by the Chicago Newspaper Association, news- 
boys, newspaper wagon drivers and stereotypers 
struck in sympathy. Thereupon, the stereotypers 
were expelled from the International Union of which 
they were members while a charter was granted to 
the strike breakers who had taken their places. 

At the convention of the American Federation of 
Labor in November, 1912, the delegates of the United 



IN THE UNITED STATES US 

Mine Workers, acting under instructions, offered a 
resolution committing the American Federation of 
Labor to approval of industrial organization in- 
stead of the present organization by crafts. The 
resolution was referred to the committee on educa- 
tion which drew up a majority and* a minority report. 
The majority report reaffirmed the present attitude 
of the Federation and reaffirmed the system of craft 
organization. The minority report recommended, 

. .. . that where practicable one organization should have 
jurisdiction over an industry, and where, in the judgment 
of the majority of the men actually involved, it is not prac- 
ticable, then the committee recommends that they organize 
and federate in a department and work together in such 
manner as to protect, as far as possible, the interests of all 
connecting branches; 

For an entire day a conflict raged over this resolu- 
tion for, under the rules of the convention, the mi- 
nority report had to be considered first and voted on. 
When the vote was taken, the old order was sustained 
by a vote of about two to one. 

When we consider, however, that the New Union- 
ism was openly favored at the convention by many 
men prominent in the councils of the Federation, 
among them being John Mitchell, John P. White, 
Frank Hayes and Duncan McDonald, we gather the 
impression that the Federation will either have to 
yield to economic necessity and reorganize or be crip- 
pled by a landslide which would throw the balance 
of power on the side of the I. W. W. The attitude 
of the United Mine Workers, of the Brewery Work- 
ers and especially of the Building Trades and of the 



116 THE NEW UNIONISM 

Metal Trades which have been organized in Depart- 
ments within the A. F. of L. are symptoms whose 
importance the observer cannot minimize. 

Only a few months after that momentous conven- 
tion, on February 1, 1913, the American Federation 
of Labor surprised the labor world by announcing 
its plans for " a nation wide campaign the purpose of 
which is to organize all the unorganized workers and 
to enroll immigrants as soon as they land in this 
country." 

The campaign will be waged among foreigners as 
well as Americans and 500,000 pamphlets telling of 
the object of the American Federation of Labor, 
printed in thirteen languages — Russian, French, 
Italian, German, Danish, Swedish, Portuguese, 
Polish, Lithuanian, Hungarian, Spanish, Slovak and 
English ■ — will be distributed. 

As a large part of the organized labor contingent 
in this country consists of the so-called " hobo " 
workers who travel from one section of the country 
to the other, following the fluctuations of the labor 
market, the system of craft organization will un- 
doubtedly have to be modified by the introduction of 
free transfer cards, for the hobo worker changes his 
occupation almost every six months. Neither could 
the unskilled and the newly landed immigrant be 
prevailed upon to join craft unions unless entrance 
fee and monthly dues were strictly nominal. Be- 
tween a group of craft unions with nominal cash re- 
quirements and universal transfer cards and on the 
other hand a purely industrial union, the difference 
will be very insignificant. 



IN THE UNITED STATES 117 

The development of the New Unionism has been 
watched with interest by the colored workers of the 
United States who, welcomed at first by the early 
labor organizations, have suffered many disappoint- 
ments at the hands of the American Federation of 
Labor and of the Socialist Party. 

Soon after the Civil War, labor organizations un- 
derstood that unless they admitted the colored man 
to membership they would face a new danger; the 
negro would specialize as a strike breaker. On 
August 19, 1866, the National Labor Union called 
upon " all laborers of whatever nationality, creed or 
color, skilled or unskilled, to join hands with us." 
In 1869, the Knights of Labor was organized and dis- 
carded all distinction of " race, creed or color." The 
A. P. of L. began by following the same policy, but 
very soon adopted the system of separate unions and, 
in 1902< passed a resolution excluding colored 
men from local unions, city or central labor bodies, 
etc. 

Many socialist locals of the South have kept the 
negro out as a matter of policy to avoid clashes with 
their white neighbors. 

In decided contrast with the exclusiveness of un- 
ions and locals, the I. W. W. groups of the South have 
a mixed membership and the solidarity of both races 
during the Southern Timber Workers' strike has done 
a good deal towards destroying in both races the feel- 
ing that the negro is naturally destined to break the 
strikes of white workers. 

The American Socialist party has observed with 
displeasure the growth of the New Unionism, not ba- 



118 THE NEW UNIONISM 

cause the aims of socialism and syndicalism differ in 
any essentials but rather because the Socialist party 
finds a stronger ally, financially and otherwise in the 
A. F. of L. than in the I. W. W. While it has not 
ostracized industrialism as such, as the English and 
the German parties have done, its last Congress held 
in June, 1912, at Indianapolis, adopted a resolution 
introduced by Morris Hillquit of New York, accord- 
ing to which any member of the party who opposes 
political action or advocates sabotage as a weapon of 
the working class to aid in its emancipation, shall be 
expelled from membership in the party. 

This can be diplomatically interpreted as allowing 
the party to retain the silent rank and file of the 
I. W. W. as dues paying members while the few indi- 
vidual leaders whose public utterances might be 
favorable to direct action and unfavorable to parlia- 
mentary action can be singled out for exemplary 
punishment. 

While members of the party who countenance 
sabotage have not been molested (for instance, mem- 
bers of the Pittsburgh branch who advocated it re- 
cently in their fight with a certain department store), 
charges have been brought against Haywood. And 
yet Haywood has never declared himself as openly 
and brutally as the French syndicalists (see Chapter 
on Sabotage) or even Tom Mann on the subject of 
sabotage and parliamentary action. In an address 
on the general strike delivered in New York City in 
August, 1911, he sang the praise of the general strike 
but did not exactly discountenance the use of the bal- 
lot He said ; 



IN THE UNITED STATES 119 

There are vote-getters and politicians who waste their 
time coming into a community where ninety per cent, of 
the men have no vote, where the women are disfranchised 
100 per cent., and where the boys and girls under age, of 
course, are not enfranchised. Still they will speak to these 
people about the power of the ballot, and they never men- 
tion a thing about the power of the general strike. They 
seem to lack the foresight, the penetration to interpret polit- 
ical power. They seem to lack the understanding that the 
broadest interpretation of political power comes through 
the industrial organization ; that the industrial organization 
is capable not only of the general strike, but prevents the 
capitalists from disfranchising the worker; it gives the vote 
to women, it re-enfranchises the black man and places the 
ballot in the hands of every boy and girl employed in a 
shop, makes them eligible to take part in the general strike, 
makes them eligible to legislate for themselves where they 
are most interested in changing conditions, namely, in the 
place where they work. 

He added in another part of the same speech : 

There isn't any one, Socialist, S. L. P., Industrial Worker, 
or any other workingman or woman, no matter what society 
you belong to, but what believes in the ballot. There are 
those — and I am one of them — who refuse to have the 
ballot interpreted for them. I know, or think I know, the 
power of it, and I know that the industrial organization, as 
I stated in the beginning, is its broadest interpretation. I 
know, too, that when the workers are brought together in a 
great organization they are not going to cease to vote. That 
is when the workers will begin to vote, to vote for directors 
to operate the industries in which they are all employed. 

In a booklet, Industrial Socialism, written by Hay- 
wood in collaboration with the more conservative 
Frank Bohn, we read the following which, like the 
first preamble of the I. W. W., seems to be an awk- 



120 THE £TEW UNIONISM 

ward attempt at reconciling Socialism and Industrial- 
ism^ 

The great purpose of the Socialist Party is to seize the 
powers of government and thus prevent them from being 
used by the capitalists against the workers. With Socialists 
in political offices the workers can strike and not be shot. 
They can picket shops and not be arrested and imprisoned. 
Freedom of speech and of the press, now often abolished by 
the tyrannical capitalists, will be secured to the working 
class. Then they can continue the shop organization and 
the education of the workers. To win the demands made on 
the industrial field, it is absolutely necessary to control the 
government, as experience shows strikes to have been lost 
through the interference of courts and militia. The same 
functions of government, controlled by a class-conscious 
working class, will be used to inspire confidence and com- 
pel the wheels of industry to move in spite of the devices 
and stumbling blocks of the capitalists. 

The Socialist Party is not a political party in the same 
sense as other parties. The success of Socialism would abol- 
ish practically every office existing under the present form 
of government. Councils, legislatures and congresses would 
not be composed principally of lawyers, as they are now, 
whose highest ambition seems to be to enact laws with loop- 
holes in them for the rich. But the legislatures of the work- 
ers would be composed of men and women representing the 
different branches of industry and their work would be to 
improve the conditions of labor, to minimize the expenditure 
of labor-power, and to increase production. 

Contrast the foregoing with what Haywood and 
Bohn have to say of reforms, which after all are the 
only immediate result of political action : 

Socialism has no concern with the numberless social re- 
forms which the capitalists are now preaching in order to 
save their miserable profit system. 



IN THE UKLTED STATES 121 

Old age pensions are not Socialism. The workers had 
much better fight for higher wages and shorter hours. Old 
age pensions under the present government are either char- 
ity doled out to paupers, or bribes given to voters by poli- 
ticians. Self-respecting workers despise such means of sup- 
port. Free meals or cent meals for poverty stricken school 
children are not Socialism. Industrial freedom will enable 
parents to give their children solid food at home. Free 
food to the workers cuts wages and kills the fighting spirit. 

William E. Trautman in Direct Action and 
Sabotage admits of parliamentary action as a means 
of minimizing the dangers of direct action : 

With the law-making and law-executing agencies of capi- 
talism as guardians of capitalist interests, out of the way, 
the foundation may be easier undermined. It must even be 
conceded that political parties, exercising the mandates of 
the working class, may be able to remove the most pernicious 
opponents to the rights of the producers to the jobs and all 
the proceeds of that job, and place in their stead advocates 
of working class interests. But then, this should never di- 
vert the activities of the workers from aiming constantly 
and directly at the foundation of all these agencies, the eco- 
nomic power of the oppressors and exploiters. A political 
party claiming to represent the toilers may have its func- 
tionaries in the law-making and law-executing agencies. 
But it should be for the purpose alone to facilitate the for- 
mation of class organization of workers for the attack 
against the seat of capitalist power, to wit: the monopoly 
over the places of employment. 

The I. W. W. j>ress, that is the Industrial Worker, 
a weekly published in Spokane, and Solidarity, a 
weekly published in New Castle, are more outspoken. 
We quote from an editorial in Solidarity for Decem- 
ber 21, 1912: 



122 THE NEW UNIONISM 

Our members can " vote " if they want to, but I haven't 
voted at an election since 1900 and probably never will 
again. 

The I. W. W. is not a political party. It is a labor union, 
that aims to unite all the workers of the world at the places 
where they work — in the shops, mills, mines, factories, 
railroads, farms, and everywhere that wealth is produced — 
in order (1st) to fight the owners for better conditions, such 
as more wages, a shorter workday, etc., and (2nd) through 
these industrial unions, to develop the class spirit of the 
workers and drill them to the point where they (the work- 
ers) will be able to seize the workshops and operate them 
for themselves, thus compelling the Kockefellers and other 
capitalists to go to work. 

This is different from the Socialist Party, which teaches 
that the workers are going to vote themselves into control of 
the government and then use the government to run the in- 
dustries. The I. W. W. fights that idea, because we know 
that government ownership would be essentially the same 
kind, or a worse, slavery than now exists under private 
ownership. 

The politicians in the Socialist Party, who want offices in 
the government, fight the I. W. W. because we have no place 
in our ranks for them, and if our idea prevails, it will 
crowd them out and destroy their influence as " saviours of 
the working class." These politicians cater for votes to the 
middle class — to business men, farm owners and other small 
labor skinners — ■ while the I. W. W. appeals only to wage 
workers, and allows none but actual wage workers to join 
our ranks. The Socialists can never get a majority of votes 
for a working class programme (if they had such a pro- 
gramme) because the majority of voters are middle class, 
since about ten million male wage workers are disfranchised 
(being foreigners or floaters without long enough residence 
In one place to have votes). But the wage workers are a 
big majority of the whole people, and produce nearly all 
wealth, so when they organize as the I. W. W. proposes, the 
working class will control the country, and with similar 



IN THE UNITED STATES 12g 

organizations in other countries will control the world. 
Foreigners, women, children and other non-voters at elec- 
tions, have equal rights in the union, and can take part in 
its activities, regardless of nationality, age, sex, or any 
other consideration except that they are wage workers with 
common interests in opposition to those of the employers. 

As far as sabotage is concerned, all the I. W. W. 
speakers and the I. W. W. press countenance it al- 
though they steadily warn the workers against the 
indiscriminate and unsocial use of that weapon of 
warfare. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE NEW UNIONISM IN ENGLAND: SYNDICALISM 

The ideas which were to foster the birth of the 
New Unionism in England can be traced back to the 
Chartist movement and Robert Owen's theories. 
Theoretically what the Chartists demanded was 
merely political reform; in reality every speech de- 
livered by their leaders pointed to the impotence of 
parliament to deal with the labor problems of the 
day. " Where are the fine promises they made 
you ? " a Chartist orator asked his audience. 
" Cheap bread they cry, but they mean low wages. 
Do not listen to their cant and humbug." 

Owen's cure for the terrible conditions obtaining 
in England in the thirties and forties was a General 
Federation of the Workers' Unions which would take 
over and operate all the national industries. The 
idea of direct action and of a general strike however 
must have moved obscurely the minds of many work- 
ers. The riots of the year 1842 when a million and 
a half people or one-eleventh of the population had 
to be given poor relief and when three attempts were 
made upon the Queen's life within three months, re- 
vealed the anarchic despair which was to be system- 
atized into direct action. In 1848 leaders of the 
laboring classes endeavoring to obtain political re- 
forms from parliament did not rely; upon j>ersuasion 

124 



IN ENGLAND: SYNDICALISM 125 

so much as upon the fear which a display of popular 
violence might strike into the hearts of the repre- 
sentatives. To a display of popular violence, how- 
ever, the Duke of Wellington answered by a display 
of regular troops guarding Westminster palace. The 
unorganized mob shrunk back and sent a meek peti- 
tion to the M. P.'s whom it had first intended to cow 
into submission. 

Friedrich Engels wrote confidently in 1847 that 
" the Chartist movement must inevitably lead to so- 
cialism." It apparently led to nothing more radical 
than trade unionism. It was not until the year 1910 
that syndicalist ideas began once more to permeate 
the masses of English workers. 

The rise in prices which according to Kautsky 
(Neue Zeit, June 11, 1911) was six per cent, from 
1900 to 1908, coinciding with a sharp decline in 
wages had much to do with the labor unrest of 1910. 
A series of sudden strikes affected the railroads, the 
shipyards, the mills and the mines. Those dis- 
turbances did not abate in 1911 and were character- 
ized by the fact that the initiative, in almost every 
case, came from the men who struck against the 
wishes of their leaders. The reasons for the lead- 
ers' conservative attitude in certain cases are 
disclosed by an article published in the Daily 
Herald of London for December 11, 1912. It 
came out that a large part of the reserve fund of the 
Amalgamated Society of Railroad Unions had been 
invested in stock of eleven British railroad compan- 
ies, several of w T hich had been the bitterest opponents 
of unionism. 



126 THE NEW UNIONISM 

If many other unions have been guilty of such 
lack of financial wisdom it can readily be understood 
that the leaders bent on " showing good results " at 
the end of the year are loath to countenance any move 
which could cause the union's holdings to shrink. 

In 1910 and 1911 it became apparent that the vari- 
ous unions were drawing more closely towards one 
another. The unskilled workers were no longer ig- 
nored but they were organized for the first time as a 
fighting machine. William D. Haywood's visit to 
England in 1910 and Tom Mann's return from Aus- 
tralia in the same year were instrumental in attract- 
ing the attention of both organized and unorganized 
workers to the need of new tactics. 

The trade union congress of 1910 was moved by 
Ben Tillett to pass the following resolution which 
was afterwards endorsed on referendum by 1,175,000 
votes against 256,000: 

The present system of sectional trade unionism is unable 
to successfully combat the encroachments of modern capital- 
ism, and while recognizing the usefulness of sectional union- 
ism in the past and present, the congress realizes that much 
greater achievements are possible and the redemption of the 
working class would be hastened if all the existing unions 
were amalgamated by industries, with one central executive, 
elected by the combined unions, and with power to act 
unitedly, whenever there is a strike or lock out in any in- 
dustry, thus making the grievance of one the concern of all. 
The congress therefore instructs its parliamentary commit- 
tee to put themselves in communication with all the trade 
unions in Great Britain and ascertain their views on the 
above question, also to promote a general scheme of amalga- 
mation and make a recommendation on the matter to the 
next congress. 



IK ENGLAND: SYNDICALISM 127 

The leader who is chiefly responsible for this 
deep change in the policies of the trade unions i3 
Tom Mann. He was born in Warwickshire in 1856. 
At ten he went to work in the mines and barely es- 
caped with his life from a mine fire. At twelve he 
became an apprentice engineer at the very time when 
engineers had obtained their Sunday rest and a con- 
siderable reduction in the number of working hours. 
This enabled him to acquire some education. He 
came into prominence in 1889 when he organized the 
successful strike of the gas workers. In the fall of 
that year the great dockers' strike took place. Mann 
assumed control of it assisted by Ben Tillett, secre- 
tary of the union, and John Burns who was after* 
wards to emulate Briand's conduct. 

Soon after Mann left the position of secretary of 
the Independent Labor Party and became president 
of the Transport Workers Federation. In order to 
acquaint himself with the transport situation in Eu- 
rope he visited every port of importance, being ex- 
pelled from several continental countries. 

In 1901, following Henry D. Lloyd's advice, he 
went to Australia which was then commonly repre- 
sented as the workers' paradise. What Mann thinks 
of that paradise is related in the chapter relative to 
Australia. The Australian Labor Government had 
him placed under arrest and kept him locked up for 
six months. 

Mann had left England a believer in parliamentary 
action and in trade unionism. He returned to Eng- 
land a direct actionist and industrialist. In his 
propaganda, however, he followed the methods ap- 



128 THE NEW UNIONISM 

plied by the French Confederation of Labor. He 
was careful not to antagonize the existing trade union 
movement. His aim was to induce the unions to 
open their doors to the unorganized and unskilled 
and to federate or amalgamate themselves into larger 
bodies as inclusive as the industries in which they 
were employed. He never organized new unions, not 
even when one category of workers was unorganized 
as were, for example, the waterside workers in Dub- 
lin. He organized them not into a new union but 
as a new organism within the already existing Na- 
tional Transport Workers Federation. 1 

iThis is what H. M. Hyndman writes of Tom Mann in his 
"Further Keminiscences," published recently: 

" Tom Mann is the boldest, most vehement, and most stir- 
ring agitator I have ever known. His dark black hair, his 
fiery eyes, his * energetic face and figure, give Mann a dis- 
tinctly foreign appearance. For life, go, humor, vigor, in- 
exhaustible and unflagging energy, I have never met Tom 
Mann's equal. After spending the whole of the daytime in 
speaking, organizing, persuading, denouncing, pervading the 
whole area of disturbance to an extent that make him appear 
ubiquitous, after a display of zeal and a manifestation of en- 
thusiasm enough to have exhausted half-a-dozen good men, 
Tom turned up at tea or supper as gay and cheery and full 
of life as if he had done no work at all. For a good deal 
more than a quarter of a century Tom Mann has been carry- 
ing on this way, not only in England, but in Australia and 
elsewhere. And his knowledge and charm of manner are 
equal to his marvelous vitality. Moreover, of all the Labor 
leaders I have ever met, Tom Mann is the one man who, how- 
ever successful he may be, puts on the least 'side.' After a 
speech which has aroused his audience to almost hysterical 
enthusiasm, down Tom will step from the platform and take 
names for the organization or sell literature to all and sun- 
dry, as if he were the least considered person at the gather- 
ing. Even those who differ from him most widely cannot but 
respect him." 



IN ENGLAND: SYNDICALISM 129 

In one of the pamphlets issued by Tom Mann un- 
der the general title of The Industrial Syndicalist, he 
describes the present situation as follows : 

The present situation is unique in the history of the world. 
Never before has there been so extensive a movement, which, 
surmounting the barrier of nationality, is consciously striv- 
ing forward to the next stage in the evolution of mankind, 
where competition will have to give way to cooperation as 
surely as primitive society has had to give way to civiliza- 
tion. . . . Most of us have been all along ready and willing 
to take our share of work in any direction making for the 
advance of our ideal, viz., the abolition of poverty by the 
abolition of capitalism (not as some of our intelligent critics 
say, by the abolition of capital). . . . Trade unionism as un- 
derstood at present is powerless to emancipate the workers; 
its fatal weakness is to be found simply if not solely, in the 
sectional character of -the eleven hundred unions of the 
United Kingdom — in the complete absence of the true 
spirit of working class solidarity and, therefore in the in- 
ability of the unionists to utilize the machinery at their dis- 
posal for scientifically conducting the class war. ... In 
the case of the engineering and shipbuilding industry, the 
action of the masters is aimed to cover, and succeeds in cov- 
ering, the whole of those workers in the establishments 
owned by them, no matter how many trades there may be. 
It is the entire shipbuilding industry they are after, and so 
they take care to act concertedly over the whole industry, 
and this covers some twenty different trades, organized into 
'some twenty-four different unions. These twenty- four 
unions have never been able to take combined action against 
the capitalists. Hence this weakness . . . the trade union 
movement must be revolutionary . . . and as regards meth- 
ods, must refuse to enter into any long time agreements with 
the masters whether with legal or state backing, or merely 
voluntary. 

His pamphlet No. 3 repeats the warning against 



130 THE NEW UNIONISM 

long agreements and the promises to give employers 
notice when an increase in wages is to be demanded : 

The capitalists, being so politely and considerately warned 
beforehand, are able to stock goods in such quantities that 
by the time the notice of the operators expires they can 
defy them to do their worst. 

Victory cannot be gained, however, until there is 
complete solidarity between the so-called skilled and 
the unskilled workers. We quote from his pam- 
phlet No. 4: 

The first work of the skilled workers, even in their inter- 
est, ought to be to force the bringing about of a substantial 
raise of the wage standard of the unskilled, and by this 
means they will have destroyed the strongest weapon of the 
employers. 

The vast majority of those who are not organized [we 
read in his pamphlet No. 7] are the unskilled. . . . They 
are receiving in some cases one-half, in some cases not more 
than one-third and in some cases not one-fourth of the 
amount received by their fellow workers classed as skilled, in 
the same work shops, shipyards and other institutions. . . . 
It does not mean that there will be any action tolerating or 
approving the pulling down of the skilled man's pay. But it 
does mean that with the unifying of the unions in each in- 
dustry, and the taking of common action embracing all la- 
borers, the laborer shall receive the first and most important 
attention because he is lowest in the social scale. 

The following passage from pamphlet No. 5 is es- 
pecially interesting on account of its bearing on the 
miners' strike: 

The time has gone by when reactionary officials are to be 
allowed to impede working-class advance; it is really a case 
of "get on and lead," or "get out and follow"; and the 
$ooner this is fully realized the better for all concerned. 



IN ENGLAND: SYNDICALISM 181 

I desire to here emphasize the fact that there is not one 
coal-mine in the legal possession of the working miners, or 
indeed of any body of workers in the whole of Britain; if 
there is, I know not of it; yet a very large percentage of 
the miners are members of the cooperative movement, and 
the cooperative movement in some districts is burdened with 
more capital than can be advantageously used. 

Many of the trade unions invest their accumulated funds 
in distinctly capitalist business concerns, or in municipal 
corporation stock; surely it would be wise on the part of 
the workers in the cooperative and trade unionist movements 
to get complete control in various parts of the country of a 
number of coal-mines, from which their own household sup- 
plies could be drawn and thus ensure supplies during a dis- 
pute. 

In his letter of resignation from the British Social 
Democratic party, Tom Mann expressed unequivo- 
cally his contempt for parliamentary action: 

After the most careful reflection I am driven to the be- 
lief that the real reason why the trade unionist movement in 
this country is in such a deplorable state of inefficiency is to 
be found in the fictitious importance which the workers 
have been encouraged to attach to parliamentary action. 

I find nearly all the serious-minded young men in the La- 
bor and Socialist movement have their minds centered upon 
obtaining some position in public life, such as local, munici- 
pal, or county councilorship, or filling some governmental 
office, or aspiring to become a member of parliament. 

I am driven to the belief that this is entirely wrong, and 
that economic liberty will never be realized by such means. 
So I declare in favor of Direct Industrial Organization, not 
as a means but as the means whereby the workers can ulti- 
mately overthrow the capitalist system and become the 
actual controllers of their own industrial and social destiny. 

Later he wrote in The Syndicalist for November, 
1912; 



132 THE NEW UNIONISM 

Those who know the real attitude of syndicalists towards 
parliament, know full well that our ignoring of parlia- 
mentary methods is not as the manifesto states, because the 
present Labor Party in the House of Commons has failed 
to voice the real needs of the people. Our objection is a 
much more serious one, it is that parliament is part of the 
decaying capitalist regime, an institution wholly unsuited 
to afford the workers opportunities of getting control of the 
industries and the wealth produced by the workers in these 
industries. We look upon parliament as utterly unsuited to 
the enabling of the workers to apply their own power in the 
controlling and ultimate owning of all wealth-producing 
agencies. Many members of the B. S. P. claim for parlia- 
ment that it is an excellent platform for propaganda pur- 
poses, but they frankly admit its uselessness for the purposes 
of revolution and reconstruction of society. We declare it 
to be not of the smallest value that there should be a few 
socialist speeches made in such a place. Such speeches 
would give the workers no power nor would they send fear 
to the hearts of the capitalists. Naturally the capitalists 
will fear nothing until they find they are losing the power 
to control the working-class. Our syndicalist method is the 
encouragement of the working-class to control itself. There 
is absolutely no agency in existence or projected at all suit- 
able to this great work except the industrial organizations of 
the workers. These unions at present have many faults, 
many officials are utterly and stupidly reactionary ; even so, 
the unions have all the essentials for enabling the workers 
to actually function as controllers of wealth production, and, 
what is equally important, of wealth distribution. Indus- 
trial solidarity is the one and only all-powerful agency 
through which and by which work will be controlled, all un- 
employment solved, and capitalist exploitation stopped for- 
ever. 

Tom Mann is opposed to parliamentary action for 
another reason: parliamentary life corrupts the mor- 



IN ENGLAND: SYNDICALISM 133 

als of the revolutionists and transforms them speedily 
into mere steady bourgeois. Says Mann : 

The most moderate and fair-minded are compelled to de- 
clare that, not in one country but in all, a large proportion 
of those comrades who, prior to being returned, were un- 
questionably revolutionary, are no longer so after spending 
a few years in parliament. They become revolutionary, 
neither in their attitude towards existing society nor in re- 
spect of present-day institutions. Indeed, it is no exaggera- 
tion to say that many seem to have constituted themselves 
apologists for existing society, showing such a degree of 
studied respect for bourgeois conditions, and a toleration of 
bourgeois methods, that destroys the probability of their do- 
ing any real work of a revolutionary character. 

Mann's ideas on sabotage can be judged from a 
semi-humorous speech of his reported in the Syndi- 
calist for November, 1912 : 

Direct action must be used. In the time of the Israelites 
a man named Moses came along and said to them, " Come, 
friends, are you willing to revolt against your terrible con- 
ditions *? " " Revolt," said they, " what do you mean ! " 
"Why," said Moses, "the strike. Use direct action," and 
he went from one to another of the twelve tribes and ob- 
tained their consent, and then they all said to Pharaoh, " Let 
us go." But the capitalists hardened their hearts and would 
not let them go ; then Jehovah applied u Sabotage," the 
plagues of lice, darkness, etc., and finally killed their eldest 
sons to punish them for their wickedness. 

Mann's attitude to militarism coincides with that 
of the Herveist faction in the French C. G. T. An 
Open Letter to Soldiers published in the Syndicalist 
for January, 1912, caused the printers, Benjamin and 



184 THE KEW UNIONISM 

Charles Buck, and the editor, Guy Bowman, to be 
prosecuted for " endeavoring to seduce persons serving 
in Forces of His Majesty the King by land or sea 
from their duty and allegiance to his Majesty, and 
inciting them to traitorous and mutinous practices." 
The defendants were found guilty and sentenced to 
nine months' hard labor. Tom, Mann then declared 
himself responsible for the publication of the letter 
and he too was found guilty and sentenced to nine 
months' hard labor. The Open Letter to Soldiers, 
reads as follows : 

OPEN LETTER TO BRITISH SOLDIERS. 

Men! Comrades! Brothers! 

You are in the army. 

So are We. You, in the army of Destruction. We, in 
the Industrial, or army of Construction. 

We work at mine, mill, forge, factory, or dock, etc., pro- 
ducing and transporting all the goods, clothing, stuffs, etc., 
which make it possible for people to live. 

You are Workingmen's Sons. 

When We go on Strike to better Our lot, which is the 
lot also of Your Fathers, Mothers, Brothers and Sis- 
ters, YOU are called upon by your officers to MURDER 
US. 

Don't do it! 

You know how it happens. Always has happened. 

We stand out as long as we can. Then one of our (and 
your) irresponsible Brothers, goaded by the sight and 
thought of his and his loved ones' misery and hunger, com- 
mits a crime on property. Immediately You are ordered to 
Murder Us, as You did at Mitchellstown, at Featherstone, 
at Belfast. 

Don't You know, that when You are out of the colors 
and become a " Civy n again that You, like Us, may be on 



IN ENGLAND: SYNDICALISM 135 

Strike, and You, like Us, be liable to be Murdered by other 
soldiers ? 

Boys, Don't Do It! 

"Thou Shalt Not Kill," says the Book. 

Don't Forget That! 

It does not say, "unless you have a uniform on." 

No ! MURDER IS MURDER, whether committed in the 
heat of anger on one who has wronged a loved one or by 
pipe-clayed Tommies with rifles. 

Boys, Don't Do It! 

Act the Man! Act the Brother! Act the Human 
Being ! 

Property can be replaced ! Human life, never ! 

The Idle Rich Class, who own and order you about, own 
and order us about also. They and their friends own the 
land and means of life of Britain. 

You Don't. We Don't. 

When We kick they order You to Murder Us. 

When You kick You get court-martialed and cells. 

Your fight is Our fight. Instead of fighting Against 
each other We should be fighting With each other. 

Out of Our loins, Our lives, Our homes, You came. 

Don't disgrace Your Parents, Your Class, by being the 
willing tools any longer of the Master Class. 

You, like Us, are of the Slave Class. When We rise, 
You rise, when We fall, even by your bullets, Ye fall also. 

England, with its fertile valleys and dells, its mineral re- 
sources, its sea harvests, is the heritage of ages to us. 

You, no doubt, joined the Army out of poverty. 

We work long hours for small wages at hard work be- 
cause of Our poverty. And both Your poverty and Ours 
arises from the fact that, Britain, with its resources, belongs 
to only a few people. These few, owning Britain, own Our 
jobs. Owning Our jobs, they own Our very Lives. Com- 
rades, have We called in vain? Think things out and re- 
fuse any longer to Murder Your Kindred. Help US to 
win back Britain for the British and the World for the 
Workers ! 



136 THE NEW UNIONISM 

Mann's propaganda soon began to bear fruit. Feb- 
urary, 1911, witnessed the establishment of a " Pro- 
visional Committee for Consolidating the Trade 
Unions and building Industry into one organization." 
This committee soon assumed important proportions 
and to-day includes representatives from the Paint- 
ers' Society, Amalgamated Carpenters and Joiners, 
Operative Stone Masons, General Union of Carpen- 
ters, Amalgamated Order of General Laborers, Na- 
tional Association of Operative Plumbers, Electri- 
cians' Union, Operative Bricklayers' Society, etc., 
etc. The Operative Bricklayers gave it valuable 
support at the outset, offering the committee a meet- 
ing hall, rent free, for the purpose of carrying on its 
work and contributing liberally to the propaganda 
fund. 

Ted Morris of the Operative Bricklayers' Society 
and a member of this Committee moved the Trade 
Union congress of 1911 to pass this resolution: 

The congress recognizing the increased power of the cap- 
italists in closing up their ranks and their adoption of im- 
proved methods deplores the lack of a similar consolidation 
among the workers. It urges therefore that the parliamen- 
tary committee take steps to call conferences of the different 
industries, with a view to amalgamating the several trade 
unions connected with each industry. 

In September, 1911, when the supreme council of 
the Operative Bricklayers' Society held their annual 
meeting, they decided to create within their society 
a consolidation committee for the purpose of bring- 
ing about a combine of all building workers. 

The committee drafted the following circular : 



IN ENGLAND: SYNDICALISM 137 

OBJECT— ONE UNION FOR THE BUILDING 
INDUSTRY 

Fellow Workers: 

Recent events affecting the position and influence of or- 
ganized labor have led to a general revival of interest among 
the industrially organized workers on the question of the 
best means to be adopted to increase the power of the fight- 
ing arm of our class — the trade unions. Almost univer- 
sally the cry has gone up for the greater unity of action 
among the unions catering for the workers in a given in- 
dustry. Therefore we, the members of the above commit- 
tee, wish to submit the following suggestions and proposals 
to you, hoping they will receive your careful consideration 
and support: 

SECTIONAL UNIONISM 

Sectional unionism is no longer able to cope with the con- 
ditions and problems of modern industry in the building 
trades. During late years a complete change has taken 
place in the construction of buildings, as regards the ma- 
terials used, and also the part played by labor. Machinery 
specialization, and speeding up of manual labor have broken 
down, in a large measure, the craftmanship which was a 
great factor in the former power of existing forms of in- 
dustrial organization, and has greatly reduced the time 
formerly required for the erection of buildings. Needless 
to say, this has increased the competition among the work- 
ers, increased the periods of unemployment, and made great 
inroads on the old trade lines. 

All this has meant endless demarcation disputes among 
the various sections of skilled workers, leading to bitter 
struggles between trade unions catering for allied crafts, 
and the wasting of our fighting strength in internal disputes, 
whose only effect has been to consolidate the power of the 
employing class. Against the solidarity of the masters we 
have appeared weak in comparison, each section fighting for 
its own hand, and making separate agreements with the em- 



138 THE NEW UNIONISM 

ployers, which they (the masters) have skillfully used to suit 
their own ends, i. e., to prevent united action by the work- 
ers. The result of this policy has had disastrous effects, 
due to the misguided belief among the workers that indus- 
trial organization is played out. We are no longer re- 
spected, because we are no longer feared. Now, if this 
state of affairs is to be improved we have no hesitation in 
saying that new methods of organization, coupled with a 
new poliey, will have to be adopted. 

THE NEW METHOD 

The new method of organization we suggest is the amal- 
gamation of existing trade unions catering for the workers 
engaged in the building trades. Such an organization 
should be constructed so as to admit to membership all 
workers employed in the building industry. This recogni- 
tion by our organization of the common interests of all who 
work for wages will have the desirable effect of breaking 
down the prejudices which have divided our forces in thfc 
past, and through having one union for the building trades, 
make our industrial organization a power again. 

A fighting policy will draw again to our ranks the workers 
who are at present unorganized. Even with our present 
membership much could be done to improve our working 
conditions. A great amount of the present senseless cut- 
throat competition in output could be avoided, and a gen- 
eral movement could be undertaken to raise wages and 
shorten the hours of labor. A properly organized propa- 
ganda, from convenient centers, would also be effective in 
unifying the rates of wages of the various grades in a 
given area. 

INTERNAL 

Internal organization should be of such a character as to 
allow of the fullest freedom for the various grades to dis- 
cuss and promote the advance of their sectional interests in 
line with the general policy of the whole organization. 

Sectional strikes should be reduced to the lowest possible 
margin consistent with the maintenance of a fighting organ- 



IN ENGLAND: SYNDICALISM 139 

ization. When a district or a national stoppage is decided 
on, all sections should be prepared with claims for improved 
conditions. One of the immediately pressing needs is the 
abolition of long time agreements, and the unifying of the 
time set for their expiration, so that concerted action is pos- 
sible for the industry all over the country. 

We have thus briefly enumerated some of the advantages 
to be gained from an amalgamation of existing trade 
unions; we therefore suggest the following as the Name, 
the Object, and the Immediate Functions the organization 
should take: 

NAME. — The Building Workers' Industrial Union. 

OBJECT. — To unite the present building trades' unions 
into one union, embracing the whole of the wage workers 
engaged therein; with a view to building a union which, in 
conjunction with other industrial unions, will ultimately 
form the framework of the machinery to control and regu- 
late production in the interests of the entire community. 

IMMEDIATE FUNCTIONS.— 1st. To maintain a fight- 
ing organization, working to improve the material condi- 
tions of the workers engaged in the building industry; to 
take joint action with other similar unions in the furtherance 
of the interests of the workers nationally and internation- 
ally, believing that the interests of all wage workers are 
identical. 

2nd. The systematic organization of propaganda among 
the workers, upon the necessity of becoming organized on 
the industrial field, upon the basis of class instead of craft. 
Organize by industry as workers, instead of by sections as 
craftsmen. 

FINANCIAL. — 1st. For trade purposes, a uniform scale 
of contributions and benefits. 

2nd. The amalgamation of the friendly side benefits into 
a separate account. 

HOW TO HELP 

For carrying on an immediate propaganda in favor of the 
above suggestions, members everywhere should form groups 



140 THE NEW UNIONISM 

of branches to discuss the subject. Later, grouped meetings 
of the various trade unions concerned should be held, and 
resolutions should be drafted and forwarded to the various 
executive bodies, asking that a vote of the members be taken 
on the subject by a given date. If the result is favorable, 
a grouped national delegate meeting of all the building 
trades' unions should then be demanded, to formulate pro- 
posals for the suggested amalgamation. . . . 

Arrangements were made for special meetings to 
consider the leaflet, with the result that it was 
adopted by 186 branches to twelve, and by the part 
this leaflet has subsequently played it bids fair to be- 
come one of the most important documents in the 
history of the British trade union movement. 

A conference was held at Essex Hall, Strand, Lon- 
don, on April 18, 1912, and the following socie- 
ties with a membership of 200,000 were represen- 
ted: 

Operative Bricklayers' Society, General Laborers' 
Amalgamated Union, Amalgamated Slaters and 
Tilers' Society, Gasworkers and General Laborers, 
Amalgamated Union of Labor, French Polishers, En- 
gine Drivers, Crane Drivers, Hydraulic and Boiler 
Attendants, National Association of Builders' La- 
borers, Scottish Painters' Society, General Union of 
Carpenters and Joiners, Amalgamated Society of 
Carpenters and Joiners, Operative Stonemasons' So- 
ciety, Manchester Unity of Operative Bricklayers, 
Plumbers' Association, United Builders' Laborers, 
National Amalgamated Painters, Street Masons, Pa- 
vers and Stone Dressers, 

After discussion the following resolutions, sub- 



IN ENGLAND: SYNDICALISM 141 

mitted by the Operative Bricklayers' society dele- 
gates were carried : 

1st. That this conference expresses its adherence to the 
resolutions passed by the last two Trade Union Congresses 
embodying the principle of amalgamating the present Trade 
Unions in the various industries, and therefore we, the rep- 
resentatives of the Building Trades Unions, consider the 
time is now opportune to put the principle into operation in 
our industry. 

2nd. That a committee be appointed from this conference, 
to consist of one member from each society represented, to 
draw up a scheme to give effect to the previous resolution, 
such scheme to be submitted to the next conference. 

The miners of South Wales have taken the initia- 
tive of a reorganization of the mining workers along 
industrial lines. The pamphlet The Miners' Need 
Step, prepared by a number of militant spirits has 
created a deep stir in England. It proposes to con- 
solidate into one organization the whole of the coal, 
ore, slate, stone, clay, salt, mining or quarrying in- 
dustry of Great Britain, with one central executive. 

No agreements are to be signed with the employ- 
ers. 

Alliances are to be formed and trades organizations fos- 
tered with a view to steps being taken to amalgamate all 
workers into one National and International Union to work 
for the taking over of all industries by the workmen them- 
selves. 

The antiquated method of striking on account of griev- 
ances is to be discarded and the method of "irritation 
strike " is to be adopted, that is to say, the workers are to 
remain at work while reducing the output. 

At the Trade Union congress held in September, 
1912, in Newport, violent hostility to the New Union- 



142 THE NEW UNIONISM 

ism was displayed by the old time leaders who had 
become aware of the danger threatening them. In- 
dustrialism was energetically defended by Noah Ab- 
lett, a miner from South Wales, and by John Tur- 
ner, a shop assistant, "The Federation of Miners," 
Ablett said, "has waited twenty years for the eight- 
hour day law; but less than twelve months fight suf- 
ficed to obtain the minimum wage. We syndicalists 
will make our congress the industrial parliament of 
the future." 

No resolution was offered for or against the New 
Unionism but Ben Tillett's resolution demanding an 
inquiry into the question of conciliation and arbitra- 
tion was defeated by 1,481,000 votes against 350,- 
000. There is little chance of the " Australian 
idea " taking a foothold in England. 

In November, 1912', the Revolutionary Syndica- 
lists of London and suburbs held a congress with Tom 
Mann in the chair. The delegates numbered ninety- 
seven, representing forty-seven unions, some trade 
councils and provisional committees formed in view 
of amalgamation, in all fifty-six labor bodies. Among 
the delegates were a dozen women. 

The first resolution dealt with the amalgamation 
of unions along industrial lines and invited the work- 
ers to form committees to prepare plans for consolida- 
tion. In the building trades amalgamation is prac- 
tically complete ; in the metal, transport and printing 
trades special Committees have been appointed. 
This resolution was carried almost unanimously by 
there being only one nay. 

The second resolution read as follows ; 



IN ENGLAND: SYNDICALISM 143 

Whereas, the Trades Councils ought to be the real centers 
of Trade Union propaganda, and be used for building up 
the trade union movement of wage workers, outside, and 
independent of the control of any political school or reli- 
gious sect, this conference urges all organized bodies of work- 
ers to affiliate to the trades council of their district or to 
take immediate steps to form trades councils where none are 
existent. 

Then followed anti-war resolutions. After that 
the last resolution was read : 

Whereas, cases of international importance are getting 
more numerous every day, all countries should be coordi- 
nated, and an international policy decided upon, whereas 
war is the greatest calamity that could befall the interna- 
tional working-class movement, it is most urgent that com- 
mon action should be decided upon by the workers of all 
countries. This conference calls upon the Industrial Syn- 
dicalist Educational League to convoke an international 
Syndicalist Congress to be held in London as soon as pos- 
sible. 

It is not the time to merely vote resolutions but to 
take measures against the war. He insisted on the desirabil- 
ity of convening an International Syndicalist Congress, be- 
cause it was clear that the revolutionaries of all countries 
who are outside political parties, should make themselves 
heard, and the decisions of such an international syndicalist 
congress would be far more interesting than of any con- 
gress of socialist parties. 

In the discussion Tom Mann showed the necessity 
of common action against bellicose governments. 

In the middle of December the Amalgamation Com- 
mittees' Federation decided to send the following 
manifesto to the various trade unions throughout the 
country : 



144 THE NEW UNIONISM 

FELLOW-WORKERS 

The lessons the recent industrial disputes have furnished, 
prove that if we are to be more successful in our fight 
against the united forces of capitalism, we must in future 
enter the industrial conflict in a more up-to-date and better 
equipped form of industrial organization than we have done 
in the past with our craft Unions. 

The development of modern industry, with the introduc- 
tion of labour-saving machinery, specialization, speeding up, 
and its new methods of production, is displacing the skilled 
artisan, thereby forcing thousands of workers into the ranks 
of the unemployed. 

These changes have diminished the power of our Trade 
Unions, and we find ourselves unable to either resist the en- 
croachments of the employers upon our position, or to im- 
prove our conditions. 

The competition between the workers has not only in- 
creased, but our time, money, and energy are wasted by. 
demarcation disputes which often break out into open rup- 
ture by the Unions fighting each other. 

As wage-workers (manual or intellectual) who are com- 
pelled to sell our labor power to live, we have a common 
interest; and instead of quarreling amongst ourselves as to 
who shall do a particular piece of work, we must unite as a 
class to secure the wealth we produce. 

WHAT IS NEEDED 

The great need of to-day is for a better form of indus- 
trial organization, coupled with a fighting policy. 

We must organize on the basis of class instead of craft. 

Our 1700 Trade Unions must be amalgamated into indus- 
trial Unions, so as to have but one union for one industry. 

Our Industrial Unions should be constructed so as to ad- 
mit to membership all workers, male or female, skilled or un- 
skilled, engaged in any one industry ; and the work of .or- 
ganization should be extended by uniting all industrial 
Unions into one federated body. 



IN ENGLAND: SYNDICALISM 145 

Our object in organizing in this way is twofold. 

1st. To take common action, nationally and internation- 
ally, to shorten the hours of labor, raise wages, and improve 
our conditions. 

2nd. To construct an organization that will be capable of 
administering and regulating production in the interests of 
the whole community, and thus secure to the workers the 
full proceeds of their labor. 

HOW IT MUST BE DONE 

To achieve the above object it has been found necessary 
to establish " Amalgamation Committees " for each industry. 
These committees are composed of enthusiastic Trade Union- 
ists drawn from all Unions in the same industry and desir- 
ous of securing the above object. Such committees have al- 
ready been formed for the printing industry, the metal 
industry, the building industry, the transport industry, and 
the mining industry. 

But in order that the work of these committees might be 
coordinated, a uniform plan of campaign entered upon, and 
the growth of such committees assisted and stimulated in 
every industry and in every industrial center, it has also 
been found necessary to federate these committees; hence 
this federation. 

HOW IT WILL BE DONE 

Thus, the Amalgamation Committees' Federation has been 
formed to improve our industrial organizations and make 
them a force for the uplifting of our class. 

We are to amalgamate the Trade Unions, not to destroy 
them. 

Through the medium of speakers and leaflets we shall 
conduct a vigorous campaign in favor of these proposals. 

By establishing committees on the lines above suggested 
we shall provide the necessary driving force to bring about 
the great change we desire, and the question of amalgama- 
tion will become a real live one. 



146, THE NEW UNIONISM / 

What we want is to give practical expression to the pre- 
vailing spirit of Industrial Solidarity. 

Fellow Unionists, with your moral and financial assistance, 
we can carry this movement to success. 

If you agree with us, see that this manifesto is read and 
acted upon at your next branch meeting. Remember the 
Unions belong to us, and are what we make them. 

The workers must work out their salvation themselves. 

Organization on the lines above described will supply us 
with a weapon that will constantly challenge the consolidated 
forces of capitalism until the worker is elevated to his right- 
ful position in society — the owner and controller of the 
forces of production. 

As this chapter was near completion the following 
telegram appeared in the New York Times: 

London, Feb. 14. — The amalgamation of the three prin- 
cipal unions of railroad workers in Great Britain was ac- 
complished this afternoon at a conference of the delegates 
of the different organizations, which has been in session in 
London for a week past. The object of the fusion is to 
insure cooperation, which has been lacking in the strikes 
called by the men in the past. 

The new organization will be called the National Union of 
Railway Men, and it will absorb the Amalgamated Society 
of Railway Servants, the United Pointsmen and Signal 
Men's Union and the General Railway Workers' Union. 
These three societies have a membership of about 200,000. 

The members of the Executive Committee will be invested 
with authority for ordering or ending a strike on terms 
which they deem satisfactory, without, as heretofore, acting 
after the taking of a ballot among the men. 

The British Socialist party has watched the growth 
of the New Unionism with the same concern which 
the American Socialist party has expressed over the 
development of the I. W. W. While the British so- 



IN ENGLAND: SYNDICALISM 147 

cialists have not as yet pronounced against the syn- 
dicalists as definite a sentence of excommunication 
as the Hillquit amendment, the executive co mmi ttee 
of the B. S. P. has felt called upon to define its atti- 
tude by means of a manifesto. 

The manifesto does not pronounce itself in prin- 
ciple against direct action by labor organizations, 
but it declares that political action is the main 
weapon of the party. " Those/' says the B. S. P., 
"who denounce or neglect political action, by re- 
placing it by direct action, sabotage and chasing of 
blacklegs, are anarchists, excluded from the Interna- 
tional Socialist party. If a small part of the sacri- 
fices and expenses necessary in a strike, which often 
is but a policy of despair, was given to socialism in 
public affairs, the results would be quite important. 
Socialists, especially the members of the party, do not 
advise the wage earners to strike, but they will al- 
ways do what they can when the workers are in 
fight with their masters. Syndicalism is clearly 
opposed to socialism. It is not likely that syndicalist 
methods will find a good ground in England." 

The manifesto ends by appealing to all the mem- 
bers not to let themselves be forced into committing 
errors by the appeals of direct actionists in the pres- 
ent critical period. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE NEW UNIONISM IN ITALY: SYNDICALISM 

The first attempt at class-conscious action of a 
revolutionary nature chronicled in the history of labor 
in Italy was the revolt in 1894 of some 300,000' Sicil- 
ian peasants which was speedily ended by the soldiers' 
bullets. This was followed by several troubled years ; 
in 1898 the government dissolved every labor organi- 
zation in the land but the only effect of that high- 
handed measure was to fan the flame of discontent. 

The revolutionary spirit grew steadily fiercer until 
in July, 1900, an obscure laborer named Breschi 
killed King Humbert I. Renewed repression brought 
about terrible uprisings. When the Genoa Labor 
Exchange was closed by the authorities a general 
strike tied up completely the most important commer- 
cial center of Italy. 

The government had to relent. Federations of 
workers were organized in every city, the Federation 
of the Printing Trades, of Glass Workers, of 
Railroaders, of Textile Workers, of Maritime Work- 
ers, etc. In 1901 the agricultural workers held their 
first congress and organized themselves into a feder- 
ation. In 1902 a Labor Convention held in Milan 
decided to create a Central Secretariat of Resistance 
with the purpose of coordinating and systematizing 

the efforts of all the federations. 

148 



IN ITALY: SYNDICALISM 149 

At that time the Socialist party exerted a power- 
ful influence upon the workers. After the general 
strike of 1904, however, that influence began to wane 
very rapidly. The workers suspected the " intellec- 
tuals/' parliamentarians, lawyers, physicians, teach- 
ers, whose only aim was financial success through 
what Lanzillo calls " a socialist career." In 1906, 
the workers' representatives met again in Milan and 
decided to replace the useless and conservative Secre- 
tariat of Resistance by a broader and more aggres- 
sive organism, the Confederazione Generale del La- 
voro or C. G. L. which is practically a duplicate of the 
French C. G. T. 

The eloquence of the intellectuals, however, soon 
defeated the congress' purpose and the 0. G. L. was 
from the very first pledged to a reformist policy. 
Enrico Ferri, editor of the Avanti and once revolu- 
tionary, became a stubborn opponent of syndicalism. 
Leone, Sabattini, de Ambris left the Avanti and 
kept up the syndicalist propaganda in the columns of 
II Sindicato pernio. At an early stage of the 
struggle all the syndicalists resigned from the So- 
cialist party. 

While the rank and file of the C. G. L. which 
claims some 400,000 members is rather revolution- 
ary, the leaders, who are mostly reformist politicians, 
have kept the Confederation in absolute bondage and 
have transformed it into a mere electoral machine. 
Its main purpose seems to be not only to prevent 
strikes but to help the government in penalizing the 
strikers. 

In 1907 the railroaders struck against the decision 



150 THE NEW UNIONISM 

of the C. G. L. Enrico Ferri published an editorial 
in the Avanti declaring that the strikers were not en- 
titled to any sympathy. The C. G. L. sent out a 
bulletin formally discountenancing the railroaders. 
Two hours after the bulletin had been posted meas- 
ures of repression were taken against 500 of them. 

The same year the C. G. L., the socialist deputies 
and the various radical papers, Avanti, II Tempo 
and II Secolo took sides with the employers in the 
strike of the Parma farm workers, hundreds of whom 
were arrested or driven out of the country. 

Another factor has retarded the development of the 
syndicalist movement in Italy; that is the organiza- 
tion of working class cooperatives of production or 
consumption. The government soon recognized that 
those associations could become useful agencies for 
the dissemination of conservative ideas and has 
granted them many favors in the form of profitable 
contracts. 

Some of those Societa Cooperative del Lavoro have 
undertaken very important pieces of work, such as 
building the slaughter house of Parma and the Eeg- 
gio-Ciano railroad line which was leased to them for 
seventy years. But they find themselves in a pecul- 
iar position: they cannot offer bids for public works 
in competition with private contractors. Work of a 
public nature is only turned over to them through 
the good offices of some " friend of labor " in parlia- 
ment. Were they to manifest too openly a certain 
political independence they would lose their best con- 
tracts. The history of one of those organizations, 
the Glassblowers Cooperative Association, for whichi 



IN ITALY: SYNDICALISM 151 

we are indebted to Odon Por, will illustrate tlie dif- 
ficulties which beset the path of " cooperators." 

Until 1900 the Italian Glassblowers were organized in a 
rather crude way, their Mutual Aid Society admitting to its 
membership foremen and first-class workers only. In 1900, 
however, the need was felt of a more democratic organiza- 
tion and the Federation of Italian Bottle Blowers took the 
place of the Mutual Aid Society. 

It was at first to be a sort of employment agency for 
the workers but it soon conceived more ambitious plans. 
The Federation bought an old factory in Leghorn, rebuilt it 
and, in October, 1903, fire was lit in the first furnace. A 
second furnace soon became necessary; the bottle blowers, 
after their regular day's work transformed themselves into 
masons and mechanics, and completed the construction of 
the furnace in forty-seven days. 

The first fiscal year of cooperative manufacturing and 
trading closed with a net profit of 15,000 lire. 

The Socialist municipality of Imola offered them a pre- 
mium to the Federation for establishing a new cooperative 
factory in that town. Another factory was also established 
in Sesto-Calendo near Milan, the bottleblowers subscribing 
30,000 lire for that purpose. A fourth one was opened in 
the neighborhood of Naples. 

The various furnaces of the Cooperative turn out some 
100,000 bottles and ten carloads of demijohns a day. Its 
working capital is about one million lire and its plants rep- 
resent an investment of over two million lire. 

In contrast with many of the Italian Cooperatives whose 
members become greatly opposed to revolutionary disturb- 
ances, the Federation of Italian Bottle Blowers has been 
evolving very rapidly towards pure industrialism. It de- 
cided to admit to full membership not only the glassblow- 
ers, but all the workers engaged directly or indirectly in 
bottle making as well, such as the stokers, the gasometer 
tenders, carpenters, etc. 

This increased the membership of the Federation to about 



152 THE NEW UNIONISM 

4000. Furthermore some 1500 members of yellow unions or 
reformist craft unions in the employ of the Glass Trust 
realizing that they could not afford to keep out of this pow- 
erful organization entered into negotiations with the Fed- 
eration. 

It is interesting to note tha .marvelous discipline which is 
maintained in the five factories run by the Cooperative; there 
is not a single overseer in any of them and the business and 
technical directors are drawn from the rank and file. 

These workers have no intention whatever of becoming 
capitalists. No dividend shall ever be declared. A part of 
the profits of the enterprise is applied to the needs of the 
Socialist Party and of the socialist press. Another part of 
the profits goes to the old age, invalid and widow fund and 
to the orphan fund. (Odon Por in Syndicalism in Action.) 

Since the pamphlet from which we quote the above 
information was written the war with Tripoli caused 
outbursts of jingoism among the conservatives, of 
anti-militarism among the radicals. The glassblow- 
ers soon felt the consequences of their non-conformist 
attitude. We quote from a letter written by; Odon 
Por in January, 1913, to the Fabian Society: 

At the outbreak of the Italian war in the fall of 1911, a 
great financial crisis set in and still endures for all Italian 
industries and banks. Of course the big banks refused to 
give loans and especially closed their coffers to all the 
proletarian concerns which took a decided stand against the 
war. The Glass Blowers Cooperative Society was the first 
to suffer, especially because its director was the general man- 
ager of the Avanti, the only paper fighting against the war 
and denouncing high finance as the cause of the war. Not 
having credit, the Society could not keep on working reg- 
ularly, as no other big industrial concern is able to keep on 
without the aid of banks. It did not go bankrupt, but went 
through a period of reorganization. The Court allowed it 
to settle its debts in instalments and yrithin a certain period j 

i , 



IN ITALY: SYNDICALISM 153 

this period is not up yet and, as a consequence of this court 
decision the Cooperative still manages its factories and it 
has already sold its whole product for 1913. 

. . . Another interesting fact (which from our point of 
view, is the only important one), when the creditors tried to 
place the cooperatives in the hands of receivers and put 
capitalist business men at the head of the management every- 
thing began to go to pieces, production and management 
were utterly disorganized, until the chief creditor, a banker, 
called back the old managers and asked them to reorganize 
everything on efficient lines. 

Syndicalist writers are generally opposed to the 
creation of cooperative societies. The C. G. L., on 
the contrary, looks upon them very favorably and is 
constantly warning the workers against following the 
tactics of the French C. G. T. which " being pecul- 
iarly French are not suited to Italian conditions." 

.The C. G. L. at its 1908 congress assumed a con- 
trolling voice in all labor disputes. No affiliated 
federation is authorized to declare a strike or to 
adopt any strike tactics without referring the ques- 
tion to the central body. The Modena congress de- 
cided to defer for ten years all discussion of the gen- 
eral strike. 

In April, 1909, the Congress of Syndicalist Re- 
sistance met in Bologna. Many revolutionary labor 
exchanges and the Railroaders' Syndicate were rep- 
resented by delegates. They decided to join the 
C. G. L. for the express purpose of leavening it 
through their revolutionary spirit, "boring from 
within." For several years the results of their prop- 
aganda were discouraging. The various compro- 
mises rendered necessary by the fusion of those two 



154 THE NEW UNIONISM 

antagonistic bodies produced curious distortions of 
the syndicalist idea. For instance Deputy Maran- 
goni was elected on an anti-parliamentary platform. 
In November, 1912, finally a divorce freed the two 
incompatible mates. 

At Modena on November 23, 24 and 25, represen- 
tatives of 100,000 Italian workers held a congress 
on behalf of revolutionary syndicalism. The indus- 
trial bodies represented were 300 agricultural syn- 
dicates, with 30,000 members; 100 transport syndi- 
cates including public service syndicates with 30,000 
members; 150 syndicates of the building and fur- 
nishing trades, with 20,000 members; twenty-five 
metal workers syndicates, with 7000 members; 
thirty clothing workers' syndicates with 2000 mem- 
bers; twenty syndicates of the catering trade, with 
3000 members; ten mining syndicates, with 5000 
members, and ten miscellaneous syndicates with 3000 
members. 

After a lively discussion, the activity of the com- 
mittee on direct action was approved. A resolution 
demanding the release of all political and military 
prisoners, some 2000 in number, was voted unani- 
mously. 

The congress, by a large majority, passed the fol- 
lowing resolutions: 

We recognize as temporary weapons for the syndicates 
the partial strike, boycott and sabotage by the help of which 
the Bourgeoisie from day to day is obliged to give up a 
larger part of its profits. A general strike of all the work- 
ers in all branches of production is the only way to bring 
about the definite expropriation of the bourgeois classes. 



IN ITALY: SYNDICALISM 155 

r 0n November 24, 1912, the revolutionary syndi- 
calists definitely separated from the Confederazione 
del Lavoro, forming a new national organization, 
the Italian Syndical Union. The discussion on this 
action lasted nearly ten hours, the motion being car- 
ried by a vote of 42,114 against 28,152, with 3000 
abstaining from voting. Twenty-five thousand of the 
votes in favor of retaining the old affiliation were 
cast by railway men, thus proving that with the 
exception of this syndicate nearly all the revolution- 
ary syndicalists see the necessity of separating them- 
selves from the conservatives and reactionaries. 

Resolutions were then passed endorsing anti-mili- 
tarism and pointing out the necessity of establishing 
a fund similar to the French " Soldier's Penny." 
Parma was chosen as the headquarters of the syndi- 
cate. 

L'InternazionaZe, the organ of the new movement, 
published fortnightly at Parma, says that " now the 
Italian proletariat has not only chosen the right road, 
but has also shown its invincible determination to go 
along it to the end." L'lnternazionale has a circula- 
tion of 20,000. 

Alarmed by this syndicalist revolt the Central 
Trades Councils affiliated with the C. G. L. have 
started a paper whose special purpose is to combat 
the tactics of revolutionary syndicalism. The lead- 
ers of the central union think that this new paper 
Battaglia Sindacale will be better able to fight the 
Internazionale than the existing monthly papers, es- 
pecially as the official organ of the Italian Confedera- 
tion of Labor, which is issued monthly under the 



156 THE NEW UNIONISM 

direction of a reformist majority, cannot engage in la- 
bor controversies. 

Quotations from the works of Arturo Labriola and 
Enrico Leone, the two leaders of the Syndicalist 
movement (neither of whom is from the ranks of 
labor) will show that their views are in no essential 
way different from those expressed by the more radi- 
cal members of the French C. G*. T. 

Arturo Labriola writes in Biforme e Bivoluzione 
Sociale: 

The socialization of production has already come about, 
thanks to the mechanism of the capitalist system. We do 
not need to substitute a new method of production (state or 
municipal) for the capitalistic method, but a new method of 
distribution. The method of production remains what it 
was in a capitalist society. We are concerned only with 
the redistribution of claims to ownership. 

Capitalism has not in reality produced one form of in- 
dustrial organization, but unites the different productive ele- 
ments (land, capital and labor) in very different ways. 
Nothing could be more repugnant than too much uniformity. 

We can imagine that a syndicate for a certain trade could 
comprise all the workers in a single branch of industry, 
could contract on a uniform basis with all the capitalists on 
behalf of all the workers, and could accumulate in a com- 
mon fund all the profits to be distributed equitably to all 
its members, distributed, for example, according to the num- 
ber of a man's children, the condition of his health, or his 
strength, and so on; and this syndicate — a State within 
a State — by carrying out the insurance of its members in 
various ways, frees them from the control of the State — 
that is, of a power outside their own will. This process 
could go farther. We can imagine that, at a certain point 
of its development, the workers' union might hire the capital 
of the capitalists, for a fixed return, and then use it coopera- 



IN ITALY: SYNDICALISM 157 

tively, either working in mass or through several coopera- 
tive bodies, keeping separate and distinct accounts. And 
finally the federation of various syndicates could become 
strong enough to refuse all return for the use of capital, and 
so possess itself of it without compensation. The revolution 
would then be complete. The capitalist class would have to 
work in order to live. Syndicates opposed to monopoly, 
and therefore open to all, would enthusiastically receive the 
capitalists of yesterday, and make use of their indisputable 
directive and administrative capacity. 

Labriola does not describe tlie process by which 
the workers will take possession of the means of pro- 
duction; he only mentions that the capitalists will 
be expropriated by " an association of the workers 
who already possess the technical capacity necessary 
for managing production." This will not be accom- 
plished without violence. Labriola points out that 

. . . "violence will not suffice to bring about any change 
unless those who employ it are prepared to make full use 
of the means of which they take possession; misery and 
revolt will not in themselves lead to a permanent change 
unless those who are suffering have a clear idea of the cause 
of their misery and are collectively ready to alter their con- 
dition. Violence must not be used capriciously; bourgeois 
society grew out of feudalism only with the help of vio- 
lence." 

At the end of his chapter on violence, he states 
that in the Russo-Japanese War the use of hand 
bombs was found to be an effective determinant in 
battle, while in the recent Russian revolution the 
general strike combined with armed demonstrations 
and " the personal use of explosives " was used to 
good effect; he argues from these recent experiences 



158 THE NEW UNIONISM 

that the chances of a crowd against modern battalions 
are now better than has been long supposed. 

In II Sindacalismo, & series of addresses published 
in book form, Enrico Leone attempts to show that 
syndicalism is inevitable owing to the slow but in- 
cessant development of self-interest within the 
masses. 

\ The syndicate is not a kind of democratic association, but 
an institution born of the economic laws of capitalism and 
destined to generate in itself the skeleton of the coming so- 
ciety. In syndicalism more than in any other theory you 
can point to the socialism that is to be. 

Considering this common class movement and also con- 
sidering the hedonist impulse assumed by modern economics, 
we are able to declare that — even if the process of con- 
centration of capital does not go on — thanks to the syndi- 
calist vision, socialism has a material basis of necessity. 

This necessity is shown by the concentration and will- 
power which men are necessarily impelled to use in display- 
ing their competitive energy, under the thrust of the law of 
egoism. Thus the syndicate reveals itself as the necessary 
manifestation of the profound law of competition, and 
socialism appears as the result of the inevitable laws of eco- 
nomic value. Under this aspect, syndicalism, as Bernstein 
well put it, is an organized liberalism. 

But since socialism is, and remains, a matter of the me- 
chanics of interests, can it possibly retain the creative power 
of the forces of enthusiasm? In the upper spheres of so- 
cial and political antagonisms — although at the bottom of 
them this prosaic economic world lies like the ferment of 
manure under the green shoots of the flowers — the drama 
of the history of life is colored and beautified by the con- 
flicts of great passions, by passionate ideals, by heroic vio- 
lence, by the obscure tragedy of the worker, by the vast 
and culminating changes of history. 

But no one should reject this bald economic conception of 



IN ITALY: SYNDICALISM 159 

socialism as a blasphemy against all the light of ideal truth. 
These ideal aspirations are chimerical dreams, graceful but- 
terflies fluttering in this dark forest which is the modern 
world. 

Socialism, which breaks out of the bowels of the life of 
society, out of the class of workers, is not, therefore, an 
ideal, but a class war. The ideal of absolute human hap- 
piness can in no way be put into a formula. 

To-day, the working class — with the automatic action of 
economic law — 'Constructs the first nucleus of the future 
society of equals in associations of workers, which are to or- 
ganize and discipline production, make it free from all con- 
trol of the strong over the weak, and make themselves self- 
contained and free from any superior human power. 

The workers' movement will be able from time to time to 
express itself in brilliant theoretical form, and possibly in 
mistaken theories; but it has in itself an incomprehensible 
force, that — like a mysterious torch — illumines its way. 

This is the superiority of syndicalism. It does not build 
a new social system according to its fancy, but emerges from 
the working-class movement as an autonomous and distinct 
realm, and sees in itself the fertile soil from which, as a 
fruit springs from its own tree and a tree from its own soil, 
it will produce a new world. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE NEW UNIONISM IN GERMANY: LOCALISM! 

^Revolutionary organization was an impossibility 
in Germany as long as the Sozialistengesetz was in 
force and therefore we shall not go further back than 
the year 1890 in the history of German syndicalism. 
At the trade union conference which met in Berlin 
that year there was a small minority which believed 
not only in the autonomy of local unions but also in a 
sort of amalgamation of all the branches of each sep- 
arate industry. 

In 1897 that minority, slightly increased, held its 
own independent congress. In 1903 the new unions 
becoming less and less orthodox in their attitude to 
both trade unionism and socialism forined a Federa- 
tion and assumed the name of Preie Vereinigung 
Deutscher Gewerkschaften. 

In 1904 and 1905 Dr. Friedeberg addressed their 
local groups advocating an anti-parliamentary policy, 
direct action, strikes and boycott. On August 23, 
1905, at the close of an address he delivered before 
several thousand adherents, a resolution defining the 
future policy of the Freie Vereinigung was voted by 
acclamation. It spoke among other things of the 
" apparent successes of parliamentarism " and de- 
clared that only class war could overthrow class rule, 
the general strike being the best weapon of the work- 
ing classes. 

160 



IN GERMANY: LOCALISM 161 

Members of the Freie Vereinigung generally desig- 
nate themselves as Lokalisten or Anarcho Sozialisten. 
Their programme includes the retention by every local 
branch of the right to strike; solidarity strikes, and 
a continual. propaganda for the general strike; high 
dues and entrance fees are absolutely tabooed ; no lo- 
calist group shall collect any money except for strike 
pay. _ 

It is not the conquest of political power which, ac- 
cording to the localist view, is really important but 
the destruction of political power to be replaced by 
direct organization of the producing groups. The 
war waged by the oppressed against their oppressor 
must be merciless and includes a propaganda against 
militarism, patriotism and clericalism. 

The localists publish three papers, Die EinigTceit, 
a propaganda publication, Der Pionier, which is the 
official organ of the Freie Vereinigung, and Der 
Kampf issued quite recently in Hamburg. The fol- 
lowing excerpts from an article published in Der 
Pionier for January 3, 1912, illustrate the policy of 
the German localists : 

The worker is told to choose representatives. He chooses 
by bits of paper, political, and if all goes well, trade union 
representatives — talkers. Now, is it possible for these 
u representatives'" of those who have nothing, to convince 
the " representatives " of the propertied that they must give 
up their property in order to bring about the equal rights of 
mankind? No!! Well, then, if that is not possible, the 
whole parliamentary system is not only useless, but harm- 
ful. . . . 

Parliaments are as dangerous for mature men as barracks 
are for young men, In the one, as in the other, men are 



162 THE NEW UNIONISM 

taken out of their own class. In the one, as in the other, 
most men are infected by militarism and are made by it di- 
rect enemies of anti-militarist socialism. 

Only think of Bebel in Berlin, Greulich in Switzerland, 
Jaures in Paris. They all declare loudly and solemnly that 
they have nothing in common with those who undermine the 
best supports of throne and capitalism, that is the military. 

These men, at first so firm, would never have degenerated 
so completely as socialists if they had remained among the 
workers and had used their undoubted abilities in order to 
enlighten the masses. And the expenses of parliamentary 
action are not as small as many assume. The elections of 
1907 ate up twenty million marks of which the social-demo- 
cratic workers' pence amounted to three millions. 

How inuch educational work could have been done with 
all that money by distributing good propaganda literature! 

But the most compelling reason why the workers should 
not take part in elections is the crippling effect which par- 
liaments have on the decisions of the worker. 

As the more or less faithful Christian, listening to his 
priest, hopes for heaven's manna, so the dispossessed turn 
th^ir expectant gaze towards the houses of parliament or 
read the speeches of their deputies with delight ; and so their 
power of personal action is crippled, their own development 
is hampered, and their belief in themselves and in their fel- 
low-sufferers is shaken. . . . 

Down with the electoral lie ! Long live revolutionary so- 
cialism ! Hurrah for the General Strike. 

The Freie Vereinigung Deutscher Gewerkschaften 
or Syndicalist Federation of Germany has always re- 
fused to furnish statements as to its membership to 
the Imperial Statistical office. Eobert Michels in 
Syndicalisms et Socialisme places their membership 
between 15,000 and 20,000. 

The tenth congress of the Freie Vereinigung was 
held at Madgeburg-Wilhelmstadt from May 16 to 18, 



IN GERMANY: LOCALISM 163 

1912. Fifty-seven delegates representing 126 or- 
ganizations (twenty-four unions had not sent dele- 
gates), the administrative committee, the commission 
and editor of Der Pionier attended the congress. 
The discussion reflected the purely proletarian char- 
acter of the congress in opposition to the ordinary 
congresses of the large centralist trade unions where 
the paid officials and candidates to offices dominate 
the discussions. 

A discussion took place on the " question of or- 
ganization." The majority adopted a resolution re- 
jecting the centralist form of organization which leads 
to the domination of a few and the servile obedience 
of the others. The F. V. declared itself in favor of 
the federative form, leaving the local trade unions 
free to decide the beginning and the end of strikes. 

The German Socialist party condemned long ago 
all syndicalist tendencies cropping up within its 
ranks and as early as 1907 expelled Dr. Friedeberg 
for " preaching lawlessness, anti-patriotism, atheism 
and anti-militarism." 

The German socialist congress which met in Chem- 
nitz last fall indicated a rather conservative tendency. 
The suggestion to restrict the power of the parlia- 
mentary groups in the party was defeated. In the 
future as in the past all socialist members of the 
Reichstag will be seated in the congress with full 
floor privileges and the vote. Besides the congress 
supported the executive committee which at the last 
election had directed the socialists of some twenty 
election districts to stop their compaign against the 
liberals. At the same time an ambiguous declaration 



164J THE NEW UNIONISM 

that the extraordinary conditions obtaining then were 
not likely to recur again may be construed as mild 
reproof. 

A syndicalist tendency to concentration aiid amal- 
gamation is noticeable, however, in the German trade 
unions. Not that it has given rise to any discussions 
but statistics reveal clearly what is taking place: 
while the membership of the German unions has con- 
stantly increased, being in round numbers 2,500,000 
for the free or socialist unions, 125,000 in the Hirsch- 
Duncker unions, 700,000 in the independent, 35,000 
in the patriotic, 80,000 in the yellow and 350,000 in 
the Christian unions, the number of unions has de- 
creased from sixty-six in 1906 to fifty-three in 1912« 



CHAPTER X 

IKE NEW UNIONISM IN AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, 
AND SOUTH AFRICA 

Tom Mann on his return from Australia, relating 
his observations in that country, said that his own 
personal experiences taught him no longer to have 
confidence in parliamentary action. The workings 
of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Acts 
which he saw in Australia, where labor men and so- 
cialists have power, taught him how little parliaments 
can do. Only where workers themselves undertake 
to decide what their conditions shall be are conditions 
tolerable. He went on to speak of the wages of min- 
ers at Ballarat, a gold-mining town seventy miles 
from Melbourne, where the standard rate is 7s. 6d. a 
day for eight hours for a qualified miner, but where 
many cannot get employment at day rates. At the 
less profitable mines men contract to develop the mine 
without wages, but take a percentage of the output 
Usually a group of four work together. Often they 
strike no metal for three months ; they have to pur- 
chase their own picks and utensils, and in the end they 
get an average of 12s. or 18s. a week. 

They belong to unions, but the unions have easy-going of- 
ficials who do not understand the necessity for fighting and 
for complete unity. These men are living on their own chil- 
dren to a large extent — they are compelled to do so. You 
may say, "But are the members of parliament there able 

165 



166 THE NEW UNIONISM 

men ? " The parliamentarians are singularly smart. They 
find that they have not the power to make a change. 

He then spoke of agricultural conditions, and of the 
impossibility of finding land in some states on reason- 
able conditions, at the very time when the British 
government was announcing that there was much 
available land. Then he spoke of the Queensland 
sugar industry, 

where until this (1910) year twelve hours* work was done 
in one shift, with no stoppage for meals, and the wages 
consisted of 22s. 6d. a week and rough housing. Work was 
done like this for five months in the year, and then ninety- 
five per cent, of the men were discharged, and they tramped 
away and got one week in four of work afterwards. This 
district had only returned one labor man since 1893, and his 
activities have made no difference. This last year (1910) 
a change has taken place. The hours have been reduced to 
eight, and a minimum wage of 25s. has been gained. 

Parliament is alien to working-class interests. Too often 
the leaders of working-class movements have encouraged 
them to trust in that all-powerful, dignified institution, the 
mother of parliaments, the House of Commons. I do not 
deny that honest and self-sacrificing men have worked hard 
to get working-class representation in parliament, but these 
honest men have been barking up the wrong tree. We have 
worked twenty-five years to get our man returned to parlia- 
ment; then he sat there five years waiting to catch the 
Speaker's eye. At last he has caught it and made a speech, 
and then people came round and slapped him on the back, 
and said : " That was an excellent speech," and there the 
matter ended. 

Dora B. Montefiore's observations while in Aus- 
tralia, New Zealand and South Africa corroborate 
Tom Mann's statements. We quote from her article 



IN AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND 167, 

in the New Revievj (of New York) for February 1, 
1913: 

There exists in the British Colonies of Australia, New 
Zealand and South Africa, so-called political Labor parties, 
sent to parliament by the trade unions and the small capi- 
talists of those colonies, whose representatives in parliament 
are a mixture of trade unionist leaders, lawyers, small shop- 
keepers, and amateur politicians, who have failed to get a 
show in other and more wide awake parties. The pro- 
grammes of these various Labor parties vary in different 
colonies. 

In Australia, with its four and a half million inhabitants 
on an area of 2,948,3GG square miles, the Labor party has a 
prominent clause in its programme declaring for a " White 
Australia"; that is to say, that no colored person is to be 
allowed to land or to seek work on the shores of Australia. 
. . . Out of this preposterous nightmare (the German and 
Japanese peril; it was not difficult for the Labor leaders to 
evolve a spirit of vulgar jingoism, which, aided by the Labor 
press, spread like wildfire over the Australian colonies, and 
enabled the Commonwealth Labor party, once it obtained 
a majority at the polls in 1910, to force on the country the 
passing of the Defense Scheme, on lines laid down by Lord 
Kitchener during his visit to Australia in 1909. This De- 
fense Scheme provides for the compulsory military training 
of all boys in the Commonwealth over twelve years of age, 
who from twelve to fourteen are to be known as junior 
cadets; from fourteen to eighteen as senior cadets; from 
eighteen to nineteen as recruits in training; from nineteen to 
twenty as trained soldiers; whilst at the age of twenty-six 
the trained soldiers would pass into the reserve. 

During my stay in Sydney I edited for five months the 
International Socialist, while the editor, Harry Holland, was 
ill in the hospital; and during that period the Defense Acts 
were for the first time put into force. I immediately issued 
in the paper a manifesto to the conscript boys of Australia, 
warning those of them who were proletarians not to be 



16S THE NEW UNIONISM 

trapped into training to defend a country that did not be- 
long to them, but belonged to the capitalists. I further 
warned them on no account to take the military oath, the 
taking of which would remove them from civil to military 
jurisdiction. 

Since the issuing of our socialist manifesto, and the sub- 
sequent agitation carried on by the party, thousands of boys, 
both in Australia and New Zealand, have been fined and 
jailed for refusing to train for compulsory military service. 
It is evident, therefore, that the Labor party now in power, 
if it cannot make conscript soldiers, will make criminals of 
the young sons of the workers. 

As regards the Labor party and conscription in South 
Africa, the following facts are interesting : Soon after my 
arrival in Johannesburg in March, 1912, I wrote an article 
which appeared in the International Socialist of Sydney, on 
April 13th. The following is an extract from it: 

Comrades in Australia will be interested to hear that I 
had not been a week in Johannesburg before I was ap- 
proached by a member of the Labor party with a request to 
help him and others with an agitation they were getting up 
against compulsory military service. The man was deeply 
in earnest, and, having fought through more than one South 
African war, he knew what he was talking about from the 
humanitarian side; but when it came to putting before him 
our anti-militarist propaganda from the industrial stand- 
point, it was very difficult to make headway with him, for 
he knew absolutely nothing of the socialist interpretation of 
existing social conditions, and he asked for an explanation 
of " class-consciousness." It appeared from what he told 
me that the Labor party in South Africa was divided on the 
subject of compulsory military training, and that the woman 
editor of the Worker (the Labor organ) was in favor of it. 
He had counted on her speaking for him at his preliminary 
meeting, but, to his chagrin, found she was in the opposite 
camp. He then, having heard of my work in Australia, 
came to me. 

The interesting outcome of this, my first introduction to 



IN AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND 169 

the capitalistically befogged state of the South African La- 
bor party, was that when I met the woman editor of the 
Worker, I found she was a relative of Lord Milner and had 
acted as his hostess in social functions when he was procon- 
sul in South Africa, and was now (with the help of Mr. 
Cresswell, a mine manager and Labor M. P.) running her 
husband for the South African Parliament, as another La- 
bor representative. 

The first South African Labor Congress was held 
in Capetown in January, 1913. A resolution was 
passed permitting all Asiatics and colored workers 
to become members of the various unions. 

The New Unionist idea is permeating very 
rapidly the Australasian English colonies. Follow- 
ing the Chicago convention (see page 96), at 
which the I. W. W. was launched, the Socialist 
Labor Party of Australia conducted through its 
weekly paper The People an energetic propaganda for 
industrialism. I. W. W. clubs were organized in 
several industrial centers. The Sydney club adopted 
the 1905 Preamble (see pages 97-98). When the 
Preamble, however, was amended, the S. L. P. re- 
fused to ratify the amendments. Many of its mem- 
bers headed by George Gresham Reeve, a miner who 
is at present the leader of the Australia I. W. W., 
seceded. Thus we find in Australia I. W. W. clubs 
affiliated with the parliamentary I. W. W. of Detroit 
and I. W. W. locals pledged to direct action and affili- 
ated with the Chicago I. W. W. In Australia the 
Amalgamated Workers Association, second only in 
numbers to the conservative Australian Workers Un- 
ion, admits to its ranks every individual and every 



170 THE NEW UNIONISM 

union in each industry. Thus far it has been con- 
fined to Queensland but its principles are being dis- 
seminated through the rest of the continent. It has 
voted to spend £100 a year for the purchase of so- 
cialist literature to be distributed among its members. 
The (Melbourne) Age announced last July that the 
country would witness in the near future 

"a big amalgamation of Australian laborers' unions, 
which may turn its back on the labor party, and refuse to 
have anything to do with legal arbitration. If consolida- 
tion is fully effected it will possess a membership of about 
25,000. It proposes to exercise unlimited power of ab- 
sorption, and may swallow smaller bodies, irrespective of 
craft considerations. 

In October last a conference of representatives of labor- 
ers' unions from various States of the Commonwealth, ar- 
rived at a basis of amalgamation, which was considered in 
many quarters to be of a startling character. 

The secretary of the United Laborers' Union of 
Victoria (D. Culliney) stated to a reporter of the 
(Melbourne) Age that his union was utterly sick of 
wages boards and arbitration courts. " There ia 
nothing," he remarked, " to be gained by waiting for 
boards or courts, or for action through political chan- 
nels. We are satisfied with our own working basis 
of organization, as we find we are only able to get as 
much as we are well enough organized to drag from 
the employers by force. We are disgusted with craft 
unions, and dissatisfied with craft federations, as they 
are maintained for the purpose of going to the arbi- 
tration court. They only serve to provide a number 
of officials with the pleasures of office. Our idea is 
46 one union for Australia." It is intended to be an 



IN AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND 171 

organic amalgamation, to contain an unlimited num- 
ber of bona fide workers. 

" Are you in favor of the general strike ? " he was 
asked. 

" When we are strong enough for that," he replied, 
' 'we shall be able to get all we want without it," 

Dr. Edwin E. Slosson, who recently returned from 
a trip to Australia, mentioned the fact that Australian 
workers prevented by law from going on strike use 
sabotage methods whenever the awards of the arbitra- 
tion boards are unsatisfactory to them, thus enforcing 
their demands after the case has apparently been set- 
tled. 

In New Zealand the radical element among the 
workers is conducting an energetic propaganda in 
favor of the New Unionism. The arbitration system 
has not given satisfaction to the workers, hundreds of 
whom were jailed between May and December, 1912, 
for going on strike. 

The New Zealand Federation of Labor at its latest 
conference adopted the preamble of the Industrial 
Workers of the World and made a provision for or- 
ganizing the workers in industrial departments. A 
resolution was carried, however, according to which 
the Federation will display its activity not only in 
the economic but in the political field. It was also 
resolved that the candidates to offices put forth by the 
Federation need not necessarily belong to the socialist 
party. The socialist party whose conference took 
place sometime before that of the Federation en- 
dorsed unanimously the principles of industrial un- 
ionism and the elimination of " immediate demands." 



m THE NEW UNIONISM 

As a sign of the growth of the I. W. W. idea in 
New Zealand we note that Tom H. Marshall, who 
was elected organizer for the New Zealand Federa- 
tion of Labor, issued a statement which reads in part : 

I have progressed through various schools of thought 
from the gutter to the platform, and to-day I place Indus- 
trial Unionism as the acme of thought and perfection of 
organization for the emancipation of our class from wage 
slavery. 

There are five I. W. W. locals in Australia, in Syd- 
ney, Broken Hill, Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide, 
and two in New Zealand, in Auckland and Christ 
Church. The Auckland local is publishing a monthly 
paper called The Industrial Unionist 



CHAPTER XI 

THE NEW UNIONISM IN OTHER COUT TRIES 

Argentina. 

The socialist party is divided into th^e factions ; 
the parliamentary socialists, the Argentine Regional 
Federation of Labor and the Argentine Regional Con- 
federation of Labor. The two last-named groups 
which are opposed to political action are very similar 
in their aims, their rivalry being merely due to per- 
sonal friction between their leaders. The Federation 
and the Confederation met in congress last year and 
endeavored to effect a combination; after three days 
of rather violent discussions they decided to retain 
their independence. 

We quote the following from an article contribu- 
ted to La Vie Ouvriere for December 5, 1912, by the 
editor of the only syndicalist paper in Argentina, La 
Accion Obrera: 

In October, 1909, La Union General de Trabajadores which 
for years was under the influence of the Socialist party but 
had been won over to revolutionary syndicalism, organized 
a labor congress; they sent invitations to the anarchist 
unions belonging to the Federaeion Obrera Regional Argen- 
tina, and to the independent unions. The result of the con- 
gress was the formation of the Confederacion Obrera 
Regional Argentina which had revolutionary tendencies. It 
was attacked at once by La Vanguardia, organ of the con- 

173 



174 THE NEW UNIONISM 

servative socialists, and by La Protest a, the anarchist paper. 
Soon after the anarchists withdrew from the Confederacion. 

Austria. 

The New Unionist movement is very weak and its 
growth is effectively checked by the efforts of the so- 
cialist politicians. Twice in the year 1912 the cen- 
tral direction of the social democratic trade unions 
called off strikes, the strike of the Bohemian and 
Moravian miners and the strike of the railroad em- 
ployes, promising to the men that their demands 
would be granted by parliament. Nothing whatever 
was done for the miners ; four days before parliament 
adjourned the social democratic deputies introduced 
a bill providing for an increase in the salaries of rail- 
road men. The bill was voted down. 

Austrian syndicalists are absolutely independent in 
their action from the anarchist and socialist groups. 
The three groups refused to combine in organizing 
the anti-war manifestation which took place on No- 
vember 10, 1912, in Vienna. 

Chile. 

The Argentine Regional Confederation of Labor 
has been sending lately some of its organizers into 
Chile. 

In Santiago a weekly syndicalist paper, called El 
Productor, was established recently. In the extreme 
south, in the district of the Straits of Magellan, the 
syndicalists have organized the Magellan Labor Fed- 
eration which publishes El Trahajo (Labor) at Punta 
Arenas. In the same city there is also another active 



IN OTHEK COUNTKIES 175 

syndicalist paper called Adelante (Forward). The 
vermicelli and spaghetti makers of Santiago also pub- 
lish a syndicalist paper which is not only devoted to 
the interests of their trade but is also engaged in a 
militant educational propaganda. 

British Columbia. 

At the meeting of the Vancouver Trades and Labor 
Council held in Vancouver last August the delegate 
of the Painters' Union brought in the following reso- 
lution : " That this council endorse the principle of 
industrial unionism, and that our delegate to the 
American Federation of Labor be instructed to vote 
accordingly. Also that a committee be appointed to 
issue a circular letter to all central labor bodies in 
Canada and the United States, asking them to take 
-similar action." 

Another delegate introduced a motion to the effect 
that the matter of adopting a universal working card 
be taken up by the delegates with their respective 
unions. The motion was unanimously carried. Petti- 
piece and Campbell asked that the motion be made to 
include that a paid up card in any labor union be ac- 
cepted in lieu of an initiation fee. This was also 
carried. 

Denmark. 

On his return from Denmark a few months ago Tom 
Mann published in the (London) Syndicalist an arti- 
cle from which we extract the following : 

The population of Copenhagen with suburbs is 500,000 
and of the adult male population fifty per cent, are in the 



11& THE NEW UNIONISM 

unions, but great dissatisfaction exists with the quiet, 
stodgy, fat officials of the older type. Still, the syndicalists 
hold to the view that the existing organizations ought to be 
revolutionized, and that the right way to do it is for them 
to remain members of the existing Unions, and to form also 
a syndicalist organization to enroll any existing trade union- 
ist in, but no one else. So that an engineer carries two 
cards, the old union card and the engineers' section of the 
syndicalist union, and pays cheerfully into both. This gives 
them a splendid chance; they are only two years old, but 
have made much headway, and in the machine-workers sec- 
tion already they have twenty-five per cent, of the old union 
members as members of the syndicalist body. It is a most 
interesting development, and one that deserves serious con- 
sideration by us in England, where, like the Danes, we have 
refused to sever our connections with the old unions. I, 
personally am strongly opposed to any such policy of sever- 
ance for Britain. There are many reasons why we should 
not, and as far as my knowledge goes, not one satisfactory 
reason why we should ; but the Danes have struck on a most 
effective method of forming a syndicalist section for each 
trade, but a man must show his union card of the existing 
union as a qualification for joining the syndicalist union. 

Subsequent events would tend to show that unionists 
and syndicalists will sooner or later part company. 
The editor of Solida/ritet the syndicalist paper was 
sentenced to eighty days in jail for attacking too 
violently certain conservative trade union leaders. In 
September, 1912, the syndicalists held a conference 
in Christiania in the course of which they agreed 
upon the following programmes of propaganda and 
action : 

" To transform trade unions into industrial unions ; 
to conduct a propaganda for spontaneous strikes, boy- 
cott and sabotage ; to fight the practice of strike break- 



IN OTHEK COUNTRIES 177 

ing by other unions and to demonstrate labor solidar- 
ity by sympathetic strikes, etc." 

Finally the revolutionists in the Danish unions have 
organized a number of propaganda clubs with a total 
membership of 600 in Copenhagen. At Kjoge, Aar- 
hus and Kastrup similar groups have been formed. 
All the groups combined have about 1000 members. 
They have issued a manifesto to the Danish workers 
pointing out the weakness of the old trade organiza- 
tions which have become incapable of directing a 
successful strike against capitalism. They are ap- 
pealing to the Danish workers to help in the attempt 
to transform the old organizations into real fighting 
bodies. 

Holland. 

A congress of the Revolutionary Syndicalist Secre- 
tariate was held during the Easter week of 1912. Of 
the eighty-two affiliated organizations forty-seven 
were represented by 125 delegates. The organiza- 
tions represented have a total of 5400 members or 
ninety per cent, of the workers affiliated with the Sec- 
retariate. 

The Dutch syndicalists are being attacked by both 
the anarchists and the socialists; their propaganda, 
carried on mostly through their bi-weekly paper, De 
Arbeid, has been very effective nevertheless, for the 
president of the congress was able to announce that 
the membership of the organization had doubled since 
the 1910 congress. In 1910 and l&ll the Secretari- 
ate has spent about 100,000 florins or $40,000 in 
strike pay. 



178 THE NEW UNIONISM 

At a conference held in Amsterdam on June 25, 
1912, the Netherland Cigar and Tobacco Workers' 
Bund, a socialistic body, with a membership of 3500 
decided to combine with the syndicalist Netherland 
Federation of Cigar and Tobacco Workers, which 
has a membership of 1100. 

Japan. 

Sabotage was applied by the Japanese workers in 
the course of several strikes which took place in 1912, 
the Yokohama dockers' strike, the Nazufara electrical 
railwaymen's strike, the Osaka metal workers' strike, 
all three of which were won, and the Kure naval 
workers' strike which ended in defeat. The govern- 
ment has called upon all priests to attack socialism 
and syndicalism in the temples and the Diet passed 
an amendment to the Factory Act designed to prevent 
" outbreaks of dangerous thought." 

Norway. 

While there is no New Unionist organization in 
Norway a revolutionary spirit is manifesting itself 
within the trade unions. The following resolution 
was passed recently by Trondjem radicals and later 
endorsed by the revolutionary unionists of Chris- 
tiania : 

" The present labor conditions demand that labor organ- 
izations rest on a more revolutionary basis than formerly. 
Therefore this meeting favors the abolition of time con- 
tracts, and recommends the use of strikes, solidarity strikes, 
boycott, obstruction, sabotage and cooperation." 



IN OTHER COUNTRIES 179 

The tendencies of the revolutionary group are 
voiced through a paper Direkte AJction published since 
December 1, 1910, in Christiania. The three union 
papers which are endorsing industrialism have a circu- 
lation of 15,000. 

Sweden. 

The New Unionists have had, since 1910, a strong 
organization called Sverige Arbetare Central or S. A. 
C. In October, 1910, the S. A. C. had 516 members ; 
on January 1, 1912, it had on its roll, some 1500 
workers belonging to sixty-three locals. The S. A. O. 
publishes a fortnightly paper Syndihalisten with a 
circulation of 7000 advocating direct action and in- 
dustrial organization. 

The Swedish syndicalists held a congress in Obrero 
last September. Twenty-two delegates, representing 
twenty-seven local trades councils, were present at the 
opening of the congress. Among the important 
questions discussed was that of the strikes which have 
taken place under the direction of the old central or- 
ganizations noted for their reformist tendencies. The 
congress decided to participate in all future strikes, 
and to take advantage of them for the propaganda of 
industrialist ideas. While the congress decided that 
strike funds were not the most important element in 
a strike, all the trades councils have been invited to 
establish strike funds. The congress decided to is- 
sue a manifesto to the Swedish workers in favor of a 
shorter workday. 

Theoretically the S. A. C. is non-political ; in prac- 



180 THE NEW UNIONISM 

tice, however, it is decidedly anti-political and for that 
reason has met with a bitter opposition from the social 
democratic party of Sweden, which favors political ac- 
tion and the organization of workers in craft unions. 

Switzerland. 

While there is no New Unionist organisation in 
Switzerland it is a significant fact that " sabot age," 
designated as " offensive tactics against employers " 
was discussed and approved at least in a milder form 
by the second congress of the Federation of Labor 
Unions of Latin Switzerland held at Yverdon in 
July, 1912. The following resolutions were passed: 

" The workers can prepare themselves for the future 
order only by not producing what is harmful to producers 
and consumers. The workers in the catering trade must re- 
fuse to adulterate food, printers must refuse to print lies 
and news harmful to the workers, and men in the building 
trade must refuse to construct prisons and tribunals." 

In connection with this it is interesting to hear that 
a movement is on foot among the Lausanne workers to 
refuse to build the new federal tribunal. 



CHAPTER XII 

UTTKRIfATIONAL, EOLATION'S 

The New Unionist groups have never held an in- 
ternational congress and have only had opportunities 
to exchange views as the various socialist congresses. 
The revolutionary views of French delegates, how- 
ever, have always conflicted with the conservative 
spirit of the International Secretariate dominated by 
the German social democrats. 

As early as 1903 the 0. G. T. asked with insistence 
that anti-militarism, the general strike and the eight 
hour day be discussed at the Amsterdam conference of 
1905. To defeat their efforts, the invitation to the 
French delegates was, according to Victor Griffuehles 
in U Action Syndicalist e, purposely sent to the wrong 
address and France was not represented at the Am- 
sterdam congress. 

In January, 1906, when a clash was expected to 
take place over the Moroccan question, the C. G. T. 
sent delegates to Berlin to invite the German workers 
to organize simultaneously with the French workers 
anti-war manifestations. The unionists of Germany 
refused to do anything without consulting the socialist 
party. Singer asked the French delegates whether 
their mission had been undertaken with the approval 
of the French socialist party. Upon their negative 

181 



182 THE NEW UNIONISM 

answer Singer refused to consider the French propo- 
sition. 

The Christiania conference of 1907 didn't exclude 
the French delegates but instructed them to work in 
accord with the socialist party. 

The recent progress towards a truly international 
view of the workers' situation is well illustrated by 
the attitude of the German, French, English and 
Spanish workers at the time of the Moroccan crisis. 
On July 27 and 28, 1911, the visit of French syndi- 
calists in Berlin led to gratifying expressions of in- 
ternational solidarity. On August 4 a congress was 
held in Paris at which anti-war addresses were de- 
livered by Schmidt, Bauer and Silberschmidt for 
Germany, Barris and Negre for Spain, Koltheck for 
Holland, Tom Mann for England, Jouhaux, Yvetot, 
Savoie, Merrheim and Pericat for France. On Au- 
gust 13 a manifestation of the same kind took place 
in London and at the end of the month in Barcelona, 
the French delegates of the Confederation Generate 
du Travail attending both the London and the Barce- 
lona conferences. 

The various New Unionist groups keep in touch 
with one another through the publication of Le Bulle- 
tin International du mouvement Syndicaliste, edited 
by Christian Cornelissen, a w T ell-known sociologist. 
This weekly news sheet, published in Bourg la Beine, 
France, was founded in August, 1907, by the revo- 
lutionary unionists who attended the anarchist con- 
gress held the same year in Amsterdam. Its con- 
tents are reproduced every week by the following 
papers : La Voix du Peuple, La Bataille Syndical* 



INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 183 

iste, France ; Die Einigkeit, Germany ; Arbeid, Hol- 
land; La Voix du Peuple, Switzerland; The Syndi- 
calist, London, England; Solidaritet, Denmark; 
Syndikalisten, Sweden; Direkte Aktion, Norway; 
L/Internazionale, Italy ; Solidarity and the Industrial 
Worker, United States; La Accion Obrera, Buenos 
Ayres. 

In March of this year (1913) the following ap- 
peal was sent to the revolutionary press of all coun- 
tries : 

The federations of revolutionary trade unions of the 
workers in the building trades, of the metal workers, tobacco 
workers, municipal workers, cabinet workers, tailors, and 
seamen of Holland, numbering a total of 11,500 members, 
have decided together to make all possible efforts towards 
the convocation of an international congress of unions of 
revolutionary tendencies and thereby to create an interna- 
tional link between the organizations in favor of the tactics 
of direct action. 

The International Secretariate of national trade union cen- 
ters which has its headquarters in Berlin, representing 
chiefly unions with the so-called " modern " or reformist 
tendencies, cannot satisfy our desire for an international 
bond, as all really revolutionary propaganda is systematic- 
ally excluded. 

This Secretariate will not hear of a real revolutionary 
propaganda and is opposed to a truly international labor 
congress where the delegates of the trade unions could meet 
personally and is satisfied with holding every two years a 
conference of the secretaries of the affiliated national cen- 
ters which conferences are held at the occasion of a national 
congress of one or other center. 

Theee conferences are occupied with the discussion of sta- 
tistics, social legislation, mutual financial aid among the dif- 



£84 THE NEW UNIONISM "\ 

ferent countries, etc. Questions of the general strike, anti- 
militarism, etc., are severely barred. Similar questions were 
at various occasions brought up by the French Confederation 
of Labor, which is affiliated to the International Secretariate, 
but always in vain. The National Labor Secretariate of 
Holland, formerly affiliated to the International Secretariate, 
laid before the international conference of secretaries at 
Stuttgart, 1902, a proposal to convoke an international con- 
gress of trade unions but this proposal was only sup- 
ported by France and rejected by all the delegates of other 
countries, who considered separate international trade union 
congresses superfluous in view of existing international 
socialist and labor congresses. 

The French C. G. T. once again put a similar proposal 
before the international conference of Budapest, 1911, but it 
was rejected also this time and there is little chance of get- 
ting the idea accepted in the near future. 

At those international socialist and labor congresses the 
trade unions are playing only a secondary part. Besides, 
the labor unions are only admitted if they recognize the 
necessity of political action. These socialist congresses are 
dominated by political parties and their interests form the 
chief part of the discussions. 

We revolutionary workers organized in independent 
unions, do not wish to be placed under the tutelage of polit- 
ical parties. We wish to determine ourselves what actions 
and propaganda to adopt. That is why we insist on purely 
trade union congresses where we can meet directly with the 
organized workers of all countries. We do not want to be 
ordered or led by political leaders, we wish to decide our- 
selves what we consider useful for the welfare of the labor- 
ing classes. 

Therefore we ask you, comrades belonging to revolution- 
ary and independent trade unions to help us to arrive at our 
own international congress. We must come together and 
consider how revolutionary syndicalist propaganda, alone 
capable of emancipating us from capitalist exploitation, can 
be carried on seriously and on a permanent international 



INTEKNATIONAL RELATIONS 185 

basis. Fellow workers, if you agree with us that it is neces- 
sary to arrive at an understanding and at the creation of an 
international union of all revolutionary labor organizations, 
bring this question up for discussion in your respective 
unions and let us know your opinions on the following 
points before April 15, 1913. We only wish to express the 
hope that your answer will show the satisfaction with which 
our proposal has been received, and that we may be able to 
create a Labor International with which International Cap- 
ital will be obliged to count. 

Question 1. " Is your organization in favor of an inter- 
national congress of syndicalist unions to be held in the 
autumn of 1913?" 

Question 2. "If so, which country do you think most suit- 
able for such a congress ? " 

Question 3. " How many members has your union ? n 

Long live the international revolutionary organizations of 
Labor ! 

This appeal has elicited a ready response from all 
the New Unionist groups the world over and it is an- 
nounced that the first congress will be held at Holborn 
Hall in London from September 27 to October 2, 
1913. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE INFLUENCE OF THE NEW UNIONISM ON MODERN* 
THOUGHT 

A timely warning appeared recently in the Inter- 
national Bulletin above the signature of its editor, 
Christian Cornelissen, a recognized authority on 
every phase of the syndicalist movement. He says : 

These last few months the great revolutionary strikes in 
England, Trance and the United States have led a large 
number of persons to write on revolutionary syndicalism. 
We have received many newspaper and magazine articles 
combating or defending syndicalism, its direct action tac- 
tics, the general strike, sabotage, etc. But we are astonished 
to see how few of the men who study the movement have 
gone to its sources, observed strikes, workers' struggles, 
or even read working-class publications. Several authors 
belonging to different nationalities trace the origin of the 
revolutionary labor movement and of the theory of direct 
action to the influence of French syndicalism, which, 
prompts its adversaries to declare that it is a u foreign 
product " of no use in their own country. Instead of study- 
ing the French movement through its official organ La Voix 
du Peuple, or through pamphlets written by militant syndi- 
calists, the authors of articles on syndicalism prefer to quote 
French and Italian writers who are outside the movement 
and with whom the French unions have nothing to do. A 
few weeks ago there appeared in the English press a series 
of articles by the socialist deputy, Ramsay MacDonald, who 
traced the origin of the syndicalist movement to the theories 
of Georges Sorel and of his master, Professor Bergson of 
the Sorbonne. In the International Socialist Beview of Chi- 

186 



INFLUENCE ON MODERN THOUGHT 187 

cago we find an article on " Sabotage and Revolutionary 
Syndicalism" where the readers are referred to the "new 
school" which considers itself neo-Marxist, and to Sorel. 
We do not wish to insist on all the nonsense contained in 
those articles. Let us point out one fact : The revolution- 
ary syndicalist movement in France, in England, in the 
United States and everywhere else, is a mass movement. It 
is the revolutionary militants of France who have created 
this movement from the experience they gained in many 
years' struggle. It has nothing to do with any school, old 
or new, with Marxism, neo-Marxism, or Bergsonism. In 
England and the United States it is the recent strikes which 
have attracted the world's attention to this movement and 
to what preceded the strikes ; it is not a new school of philos- 
ophy, but the hard work of organization and the practical 
experience of the masses in the service of capitalists and in 
their daily struggle against exploitation. 

Not only have the unions " nothing to do " with 
the various philosophers whom the press is wont to 
characterize as " the prophets of syndicalism/' but, 
in the majority of cases the workers are totally un- 
familiar with the names of those intellectual wor- 
thies. For the direction followed by an economic 
movement does not depend upon the mental attitude 
of passive observers but on the activities of the mili- 
tants within the movement. If the former sympa- 
thize with the movement, they may, being more 
skilled in the use of a pen, describe it more accu- 
rately than even the workers engaged in the struggle 
could hope to do. Their statements are therefore 
worth registering as historical documents. But to 
search the works of a contemporary philosopher, how- 
ever recondite, to find a few sentences in accord with 
the principles of a current movement and establish 



188 THE NEW UNIONISM 

a relation of cause and effect between them (a the- 
ory being the cause and syndicalism the effect), is 
utterly futile. 

Less than any other thinker's name should Berg- 
son's be mentioned in connection with syndicalism. 
Syndicalism is all " practice/' Bergsonism all " the- 
ory." Bergsonism, that beautiful dilettantism with 
its profound scorn for facts and science, its lyrical 
strain and vivid images which, in spite of its insist- 
ence upon the pragmatic role of the intellect, never 
makes provision for its own application to human or 
social conduct should under no circumstances be 
dragged into a discussion of the New Unionism. 

Leaving aside the author of Creative Evolution, 
we may easily find a large number of thinkers, es- 
pecially in France, who have been deeply influenced 
by the syndicalist agitation. It may scarcely be said 
that they have influenced the movement, for, in the 
main, they do not sympathize with it. Their works, 
however, present some interest in so far as they are 
symptomatic of the " transvaluation of values," to 
use a Nietzschean expression, brought about, espe- 
cially in social and individual ethics, by the conflict 
between the ethics of the arms and the ethics of the 
brain. Ethical dogmatism is being assailed strenu- 
ously by men like Paulhan, Chide, Le Koy or Le 
Dantec, none of whom ever expresses any sympathy 
with the aims of the new unionism. 
^ Thus Paulhan in his Ethics of Irony, insists that 
u the world " is a chaos, a dust-cloud of systems in 
which there appear now and then more or less regular 
swirls ; society is another chaos even less regular than 



INFLUENCE ON MODERN THOUGHT 189 

the former ; man is nowadays a stunted being, pulled 
hither and thither by opposite tendencies which he 
cannot harmonize. In view of those clashes of blind 
forces which are the universe and society, our only 
salvation consists in adopting the ethics of irony, 
that is in refusing to be the victims of any belief in 
a meaningless finality. 

In Modem Mobilism, Alphonse Chide proclaims 
the death of traditional logic and swears allegiance 
to " Proteus the true God." In Law Maxima Le 
Roy heralds the passing away of the parliamentary 
system and regrets the stubborn survival of legality, 
" the modern fetish." 

Laws will be superseded in the future, he thinks, 
by covenants between individuals ; instead of being 
enforced by the tyrannical state they will be ob- 
served as " directions," as " symptomatic decisions " 
rendered by human groups. 

It cannot be said Sorel' s writings mirror faithfully 
the present tendencies of the French movement. We 
find Sorel expressing in 1903 reformist views, com- 
mending Jaures' attitude in the Dreyfus affair, ex- 
pounding orthodox socialist ethics and exhorting the 
workers to defend the principles of conventional truth, 
justice and morality. From Jauresism he transferred 
his allegiance to Guesdism which he later deserted 
for syndicalism of a rather mild hue. Not only 
did Sorel never influence the destinies of the C. G. T., 
but, at the very time when Pelloutier's efforts 
were bearing fruit and the anarchist elements intro- 
duced by Pelloutier were on the point of imposing 
their views and tactics upon the more conservative 



190 THE NEW UNIONISM 

Federations of Unions, Sorel made in his preface to 
Pelloutier's History of Labor Exchanges, a state- 
ment which showed his total lack of understanding 
of the movement : 

" The Confederation of Labor," he wrote, " will 
prove an officious council of labor, a sort of academy 
of the proletariat which will confer with the Govern- 
ment as, for instance, agricultural societies do." 

Since 1910 Sorel has not even professed to be in 
sympathy with the syndicalist movement which, as 
he wrote to some Italian syndicalists, had not come 
up to his expectations. In the same year Sorel, as 
well as one of his disciples, Edward Berth, promised 
their support to a monarchist publication which, by 
the way, has not yet appeared. A brief examination 
of his theories concerning the general strike, violence 
and sexual morality will suffice to show what a deep 
chasm separates the least metaphysical of philoso- 
phers, Sorel, from even the least materialistic eco- 
nomist within the ranks of the C. Gr. T. 

Sorel' s interpretation of the general strike is origi- 
nal. He has no patience with the Utopias a la Bel- 
lamy which are mere endeavors to visualize a society 
of the future acceptable, at least ethically, to people of 
our generation. The authors of such works (would 
he include Pataud and Pouget?) make no allowances 
for the modifications of human mentality under the 
influence of what Nietzsche considered as one of the 
most powerful forces modeling our minds, " better 
food, more space and more hygienic dwellings/' 
;which even mere reformism is bound to give us grad- 
ually. That is why Sorel says that the conception 



INFLUENCE ON MODERN THOUGHT 191 

of the general strike should not be discussed, but ac- 
cepted, by the workers themselves as a reality, by 
their leaders as a myth. 

General strike, social revolution are not concrete 
aims but mere mythical images; such images, how- 
ever, hold an unlimited reserve of motor power, for 
they enable agitators to keep the workers in revolt 
against present society by giving to their efforts an 
aim which, to the masses, at least, is concrete. 

The labor myths of to-day are very similar to the 
Christian myths such as the Coming of the King- 
dom, Judgment Day, etc., a belief in which distin- 
guished Christians from Pagans. The Kingdom of 
God and Judgment Day never became realities but 
the Christian Church was founded. 

The word Utopia should be reserved, therefore, to 
designate the " practical " projects of " constructive " 
socialists. Cool-headed persons who cannot believe 
that a " catastrophe " such as Marx predicted could 
suddenly transform a society created by capitalists 
into an industrial commonwealth, will not dream 
of Utopias but will hold labor myths before the popu- 
lace to hasten its onward march, as a red rag is held 
before a bull, 

Sorel's Apologie de la Violence is equally far 
fetched. " The workers must harass the capitalists 
or else the capitalists are likely to become sluggish 
and lose sight of their interests. This would in time 
cause the workers to become less militant and to al- 
low themselves to be satisfied by sops thrown to them 
by democracy." 

Such is, to Sorel, the real aim of the class struggle. 



im THE NEW UNIONISM 

Quite as artificial and illogical is the difference 
lie establishes between capitalistic and proletarian vio- 
lence. " Capitalistic violence/' he says, " legalized 
by jurists is implacable to the defeated and results in 
acts of savagery the more frightful in that they can 
be represented as being prompted by virtuous mo- 
tives. Proletarian violence consists in acts of war 
and has the value of a military demonstration." 

More than any other syndicalist writer Sorel has 
given thought to sexual ethics. On that question he 
shows himself a purely traditional and almost ortho- 
dox Christian. While the majority of radicals hold 
the view (even if many shrink from expressing it 
publicly) that chastity is a mythical virtue insisted 
upon by capitalistic society because it keeps down 
the number of unsupported women, pregnant or nurs- 
ing, and of " fatherless " children, Sorel writes that 
" the juridical conscience cannot rise to any height 
in countries where a respect for chastity is not deeply 
rooted in the people's minds. . . . and that, the 
world will only grow more just in the measure in 
which it will grow more chaste." 

Somewhere else he tells us that if Rousseau's con- 
sort had such a bad influence upon him it was be- 
cause " she failed to subdue his erotic imagination." 

And yet Sorel realizes that the ethics of the pro- 
ducers cannot be made to harmonize with the ethics 
of the parasites. To the non-producing middle men 
who stand between consumer and producer receiv- 
ing toll from both, the rules of ethical warfare no 
longer apply and many are the syndicalist speakers 
who liken the non-producers to a disease which eats 









INFLUENCE ON MODERN THOUGHT 193 

tip the body without giving anything in return for 
the waste it entails. 

A physician is not supposed to be swayed by any 
consideration of kindness to bacteria in his fight 
against disease. His use of drastic remedies will be 
limited only by the condition of the patient's heart 
or other organs. As Vincent St. John puts it, in his 
chapter on I. W. W. methods : " The tactics used 
are determined solely by the power of the organization 
to make good in their use. The question of right or 
wrong does not concern us." 

This statement is a little too broad, for the ques- 
tion of right and wrong concerns the producers at least 
in their mutual intercourse. Among producers the 
Golden Rule will still obtain. 

Who are the producers ? The query appears futile 
and it would be useless to answer were it not for 
the extremes to which a movement may go in its in- 
cipient, neophyte stage. Certain syndicalists give 
to the word producer a connotation as narrow as that 
which classical philosophers gave to the word creator. 
To those, the only creative work was the practice of 
letters and arts. Now it is the once oppressed and 
despised laborers who are to be considered as doing 
the only kind of work which deserves the epithet of 
creative or as they prefer to call it, productive. 

Certain syndicalists recognize as producers only ag- 
ricultural and industrial workers. 

Charles Guyiesse and M. Laurin go so far as to 
declare that teachers are not producers as they can- 
not " take possession of the machinery of their in- 
dustry." This manifestly absurd view is not shared 



194 THE NEW UNIONISM 

by any of the men who have attained positions of 
authority in the movement, Pataud, Pouget, Tom 
Mann, Haywood. We showed in Chapter V that the 
leaders of the C. G. T. consider literary and artistic 
achievement as one legitimate form of production. 

In the chapter on intellectuals we saw that instead 
of threatening to " set intellectuals to work with a 
pick and shovel," the greatest leaders of the C. Gk T. 
proposed to waive the clause of the social covenant 
relative to manual labor in the case of intellectuals 
producing works of literature or art conferring a dis- 
tinct boon upon society or enjoying an indisputable 
popularity. 

Felix Le Dantec, a lecturer at the Sorbonne, whose 
name has never been mentioned in connection with 
syndicalist ethics, has expressed in more scientific 
terms than any other writer, not excluding Sorel, 
the ethics of the New Unionism. Sorel took sim- 
plified metaphysics for his basis. Le Dantec fear- 
lessly establishes his ethics on biology. 

Traditional ethics, Le Dantec writes, insists on duties 
which are assumed to be eternal and essential while rights 
are only relative and incidental. A man's salvation de- 
pends less on his demanding whatever he is entitled to 
than upon his fulfilling all his duties. 

Biological ethics, which the dominant class has taught the 
enthralled classes to disregard and to despise, cannot coun- 
tenance that subordination of rights to duties. 

The multiplication of human beings on this earth has 
brought about a conflict between two instincts, the pri- 
mordial instinct of individual selfishness and the acquired 
instinct of soqial selfishness. The first instinct prompts us 



INFLUENCE ON MODERN THOUGHT 195 

to fight for our rights; the second compels us, more or less 
hypocritically, to recognize duties. Rights are natural; 
duties are metaphysical. 

Whenever an antagonism arises between immediate indi- 
vidual advantages and the advantages an individual can de- 
rive indirectly from the prosperous condition of society, 
metaphysical notions born from mental habits struggle in 
our minds with considerations resulting from another kind 
of selfishness. It is selfishness which develops in us the 
sentiment of honor but it is also selfishness which perpet- 
uates in us habits of prevarication contrary to honor. The 
result of this strife and dualism is the development of 
hypocrisy, one of the mightiest factors of human evolution. 
In the transmission of characters which are not congenital 
to the species, tradition plays an important part; tradition 
has for its main basis imitation and therefore it is most im- 
portant that metaphysical notions be taught even by those 
who are not absolutely convinced of their reality. 

We do not hesitate to lie when such a course is profitable 
to us but we lie surreptitiously and when we think we are 
safe against detection; publicly we reprove lying very se- 
verely and scorn those of our fellow creatures who allow 
themselves to be called liars. 

The role of the revolutionist in modern society consists in 
banishing hypocrisy and replacing it by cynicism ; cynicism 
is not more than the frank application of biological truths 
to human conduct; if cynicism prevailed for any length of 
time, however, hypocrisy might never return and it may be 
that no social system whatever could endure. 

Fortunately, whoever becomes the master to-morrow will 
invoke the same metaphysical notions which were invoked 
by the masters of yesterday: justice and equality. If the 
victors proclaimed their rule simply by saying that they 
were the stronger, we would be in a terrible pass. Tradi- 
tion is bound to retain its power for some time; we can 
notice, however, a distinct lessening in the marks of respect 
accorded to the principles on which society rests (at least 



196 THE NEW UNIONISM 

in the mind of its individual members) and this is a very 
disturbing symptom for those who are bent on warding off 
great upheavals. . . . Parliaments, for instance, have only 
one aim, to avoid revolutions. To attain that purpose they 
must grant to individuals or groups of individuals rights 
which are commensurate with their power to inflict harm. 

Our present hypocrisy usually conceals this legislative 
necessity under lofty metaphysical terms. Parliament 
grants to men what we say it is " equitable " to grant them ; 
the truth is that men are granted what they would take by 
force if it was not granted to them. 

The interests of the various classes being antagonistic, 
legislators must always ascertain how far they can go in ac- 
cording satisfaction to one class without bringing about an 
insurrection of the other classes which are being despoiled 
whenever privileges are granted to the former. Majorities 
are redoubtable elements and there is a temptation to con- 
cede everything to them ; when, however, a minority becomes 
threatening, a slice of the cake must be given it before it will 
draw in its claws. This is the legislator's only rule of con- 
duct; personally he has no aim whatever; he does not pro- 
gress towards any definite future; he but prevents people, 
temporarily, from devouring one another. 

The first time employers found themselves facing a strike 
they felt injured from the point of view of the subjective 
rights which they had created for themselves as a conse- 
quence of mental habits. The law whose principal function 
is to protect property, likened strikers to common criminals. 
Subjective rights, however, amount to very little outside of 
the mentality which conceives them, when objective rights, 
antagonistic to them, grow manifestly in strength. The law 
has then to be modified. Under the hackneyed excuse of 
Justice, the law had to grant to workers the right to strike 
at the precise moment when those entrusted with the appli- 
cation of the law found themselves powerless to prevent 
strikes. 

When we use the words "legality" or "established gov* 



INFLUENCE ON MODERN THOUGHT 197 

ernment" we allow ourselves to be impressed by the gran- 
deur of those terms which represent only metaphysical con- 
ceptions. We forget that every established government was 
established by violence and will remain established only until 
another act of violence upsets it. And those who are plan- 
ning to upset it will be criminals until they carry out their 
plans and thereby in their turn acquire a metaphysical halo. 
The tendency nowadays is to discuss the law and to evade 
it if it appears bad. The old saying " obedience to law is 
the duty of all," has lost the sacred character it had in olden 
times. We obey law because we fear the punishment visited 
upon lawbreakers and therefore the only question is: Are 
we strong enough to defy the law? 

This last paragraph and the statement made else- 
where that " a man's rights are commensurate with 
his power to do harm " accord strangely with Vin- 
cent St. John's words on the I. W. W.'s tactics and 
his contention that " nothing will be conceded by the 
employers except that which we have the power to 
take and hold by the strength of our organization." 

A last quotation from Le Dantec shows that even 
outside of syndicalist circles the idea of merit or 
reward, one of the mainstays of the idea of private 
property, is being submitted to a radical revaluation. 

u The idea of merit is opposed to the idea of equality ; for 
the reward of merit, which is relative and temporary, creates 
lasting inequality. To-day a soldier may receive for a deed 
of bravery a cross of honor which will shine on his breast 
even in his hours of pusillanimity and cowardice. The 
Romans, more matter of fact, awarded to their military 
heroes a wreath of foliage which, wilting within two days, 
lasted longer, nevertheless, than the deed it recompensed." 



198 THE NEW UNIONISM 

The application of this theory to the problem of 
private property and inequality is obvious. From 
the view that " property is theft " we have evolved 
to the more scientific view that property is the unrea- 
sonable and lasting compensation of temporary serv- 
ice. 



FEB 



i h. 



Opinions of The New Unionism by Andre Tridon 






London Solidarity 

It leads us out of the maze of opinion and speculation . . . into the 

straight path to industrial daylight. It is a record of facts; ... of 

what workers have actually done on their way to the control of industry. 

After reading this statement of the new unionism ... he would be a 
brainless creature indeed who said that it didn't exist. 

Chicago Record-Herald 

The fifth book on syndicalism. . . . In many ways the fifth book is 
the best, for its author comes from the heart of the movement, and his his- 
torical perspective is excellent. Tridon himself is an intellectual, but he is not 
bitter in his views. 

The order of the book is logical. Following chapters on definitions . 
the strike and sabotage — is a series of concrete studies of the movement in 
fvarious] sections of the globe. These summaries are especially good, both 
because the ground they cover is more extensive than that in any other work 
and because of the insight they display. A final chapter on the influence of 
the new unionism. ... on modern thought completes a rather significant 
contribution to the looming literature of protest. 

Boston Transcript 

Mr. Tridon gives a clear exposition of the philosophy and practice of 
syndicalism, its history and its present status all over the world. His account 
might be looked at as a valuable handbook supplementing the works of Simk- 
hovitch, Spargo, Brooks and other writers who do not apply so thoroughly 
the doctrine to the concrete expression of the agitation which is daily taking 
place. 

Baltimore Sun 

The book is the most useful yet on the subject. 

London, Wilshire's Magazine 

The best handbook on syndicalism that has been published in English 
or any other language. He covers all countries and all men, and what he 
says is authoritative and correct. I am glad there is such a book to recom- 
mend and that it is sold at such a reasonable price. ... I recommend 
it fully to anyone desiring a most compact and accurate compendium of the 
mightiest movement in the history of man. 

New Orleans Times-Democrat 

Valuable in analyzing the complicated situation in which capital and labor 
find themselves, because of its fundamental statement and its comprehensive 
scope. 

Boston Herald 

A welcome book. It explains and describes in detail the aims and methods 
of the present-day developments in the labor question, tells us how syndicalism 
has done its work in France, how localism or anarcho-socialism has affected 
the trades in Germany, and how industrialism has stirred the workers in the 
United States to constant outbreaks and strikes, . . # . not in the cold, 
analytic manner of the ordinary economic textbook, but with a touch of anecdote 
and incident, which makes entertaining as well as serious reading. . . . In- 
dispensable to those readers who have an interest in the present upheaval which 
is going on under our economic surface. 

San Francisco Call 

A thorough and thoughtful examination of the subject. 
Cloth covers, $1.00 net, weight 17 oz. Paper covers, 25c. net, weight 13 oz, 
B. W. HUEBSCH, 225 Fifth avenue, New York. 



